Currently the only routine tests to Golden's water supply are done by regional health inspector Kirt Sellers. He runs total coliform and fecal bacteriological tests on between two and four samples per week. There are no routine tests performed by local water operators. There are no routine tests for E. Coli or Cryptosporidium. Sellers doesn't think so.
Operators have to be more accountable.
Legislation that requires local operators to test the water supply exists, but because of various funding issues and the recent change of government it hasn't been administered, explained Sellers. Sellers, who is stationed in Invermere, is the health inspector for a region that stretches from Radium Hot Springs to the north of the Kinbasket reservoir. He comes to Golden once or twice a week, and his responsibilities lay beyond water control. Among his duties are air quality, sewage disposal, and the inspection of pools, schools and restaurants. He would like to see a water system the size of Golden's sampled 10 times a week, but does not have the resources to do it alone.