Did you hear the story about the hole in the ground near
     UW's Biology greenhouses?
 
          Well!
 
          That's right -- a water well, 185 feet deep, pumping as
     much as 50 gallons a minute to the surface, where it's great
     news for a lab full of rainbow trout, fathead minnows, white
     suckers, and the invertebrates and plants that live with
     them in several dozen simulated lakes.
 
          The well, drilled late in August, also has the
     potential to provide some of the water used on campus for
     other purposes, reducing the load on wells and reservoirs
     operated by Waterloo Region.
 
          Only about 10 gallons of water a minute is currently
     needed for the aquatics lab, says Dr. George Dixon, chair of
     the biology department and a specialist in freshwater life.
 
          "We hold these organisms and we rear them and have
     breeding programs for them," he explained, "to support
     research in environmental toxicology."
 
          For the past 20 years the fish and other organisms,
     kept in about 60 tanks in a locked area of Biology 1, have
     swum through water that came out of ordinary taps.
 
          "Most of this water has been coming from the Dearborn
     well," Dixon explained. The Dearborn well is that brown
     wooden structure across the ring road from Needles Hall;
     it's operated, like other water pumping stations across
     Kitchener-Waterloo, by Waterloo Region. Water users on
     campus and nearby got most of their regional water from
     Dearborn.
 
          But last summer, the Region added a new source of water
     to its supply: the Grand River. River water needs more
     treatment than groundwater, so it's now possible that some
     of the water received by the UW lab, and by any other water
     user, will contain the chlorine compounds used by the Region
     to kill bacteria.
 
          There's the problem, Dixon said. The chlorine compounds
     can also kill the fish, and even if they aren't deadly, they
     will certainly complicate any experiments about water
     pollution.
 
          "We have to have a high quality, non-chlorinated
     water," he says. . . .  "We took a decision to drill a well,
     in order to have a sole and pure supply."
 
          Early gallons coming from the well seem to be actually
     better than the water coming from the Dearborn well, in
     hardness and in metal content. It's not draining the same
     aquifer, he said, since the new well goes down to bedrock,
     while Dearborn is relatively shallow.
 
          In early September, water was pumped for several days
     to make sure there were no bad effects on the supply coming
     from Dearborn into the Region's pipes. Several more days of
     pumping straight down the drain are needed to clear the
     water from any turbidity caused by dust from the drilling.
 
          And then, subject to official approval from the
     ministry of the environment, the well can be hooked up to
     the lab. "We've been told that we'll be up and running by
     the end of the month," Dixon said.  A decision about pumping
     some of the water for use elsewhere on campus hasn't been
     made yet.