The Science-Policy-Technology Nexus of Next Generation Water Quality Regulation

The quandary of assessing human health effects of hydraulic fracturing is a textbook example of what happens when regulatory policies are driven by myopic economic interests (as opposed to a solid foundation in science) and uniformly fail to keep pace with technological advancement in extractive industries that is explored by participants of the Water School for Decision-Makers (WiSDoM), a pilot program for municipal, provincial, and federal-level politicians in Ontario, Canada. Although provincial drinking water standards are considered to be world-class, the current reliance on outdated, inappropriate, and overly restrictive “target lists” provides a government-sanctioned smokescreen for environmental pollution and threatens to destabilize the economy through preventable healthcare expenditures and flawed corporate decision-making. An alternate strategy of applying selected modern technologies developed for (1) genetic testing, (2) mineral prospecting, and (3) the Olympic Drug Squad to completely characterize water resources (as a pre-drilling baseline and during ongoing monitoring and maintenance) is described within the framework of a revised approvals process designed for the North American watershed and informed by key principles of indigenous traditional knowledge. The comprehensive dataset thus efficiently and affordably generated could be made publicly available for multiple uses including, but not limited to, integrated environmental protection policy-making at all tiers, impetus for the development of new water treatment technologies, and preventive healthcare. The digital platform could also support the emerging industry of consumer decision support tools like Baby Bear Care (the world’s first medical geology smartphone application) which will be briefly demonstrated.