Environment committee  I think there needs to be public funding to support a much more modern, technology-based monitoring infrastructure for the entire freshwater cycle. What we need to think about is a whole new relationship with water. Our relationship with fresh water and our old habits are creating more problems, both for quantity and quality, in the distribution of water, so it's valuable for us to rethink how our communities' reliance on water is being used and affected by its use.

Environment committee  There is a number, but I can't recall it off the top of my head. It's somewhere higher than 30%, but I don't think it's 100%. It's somewhere closer to 45% or 50% getting their drinking water supplied directly from groundwater.

Environment committee  Yes. It's a really important issue. I'm struggling to find graduate students from Canada interested in doing the research that I have excellent funding for. A lot of my students are international students, but I'm wondering where all the Canadians are. Meanwhile, we have empty positions that need to be filled by these young people.

Environment committee  That's a very old number. It's the only number we have. It's one reported by Environment Canada and hasn't changed since 1999, I think, when it was first reported. I don't think the number is very well informed.

Environment committee  I'm not aware of any that I can cite off the top of my head, but I will check with colleagues and get back to you.

Environment committee  There's no modern standard. In terms of water quality, I think we mostly monitor total coliforms and indicator-type parameters, in terms of groundwater quality or private water supplies. There are standards that municipalities use to verify the quality, but not necessarily for emerging contaminants or contaminated site-type contaminants.

Environment committee  Exactly.

Environment committee  That's a very broad question. I also listened to Jay Famiglietti making a comment about the fact that there's perhaps an important role at the federal level to set a certain minimum standard. It can be very useful, because it's a shared resource and water doesn't know these provincial or territorial boundaries in the way the natural system works and so on.

Environment committee  I think the issue with tailings ponds would be the hydrochemistry of the water and how that can mobilize certain heavy metals or trace constituents into the groundwater system. I think the release of water from these ponds becomes a major recharge event, and that water can enter into the system, contaminate these freshwater systems and cause toxic effects, I suppose, to the ecosystem that is being impacted.

Environment committee  Unfortunately, I don't know the specific technologies by name or their cost in particular. I can make an analogy to 40 years ago, or more, when we discovered extensive contamination by chlorinated solvents, which were widely distributed in our society in large and small communities.

Environment committee  One of the things we need to think about as human beings is that our habits have perhaps deleterious impacts on our water quality and quantity aspects. I think it's certainly something that has to be kept fresh. Thank you.

Environment committee  I think that was aimed at me. Is that correct?

Environment committee  I'm not directly involved in.... I have a minimal amount of specific research going on with PFAS contaminants. It's a relatively new contaminant, so my entire discipline is on a very steep learning curve. The engineering colleagues who are focused on remediation are advancing several types of technologies for treatment.

Environment committee  As you pointed out, I've been working for a few decades now on groundwater systems in bedrock aquifers, which Canada is very familiar with. Many of our groundwater basins and watersheds are bedrock-relevant, and this has brought us to understand not just how contaminants move through the system, but how heat is transported through the bedrock system.

Environment committee  It is. First of all, it's important to think of groundwater and surface water as one resource. As I mentioned in my statement, groundwater discharges to surface water and sustains those flows throughout the seasons. Surface water can discharge back to groundwater. They're inextricably linked.