Stay in the know on all things drinking water
Dr. William B. Anderson retired on January 1, 2025. He maintains a connection to the Water Science, Technology & Policy Group through an adjunct professorship to guide his remaining graduate students through to their degree completion. He was previously a Research Associate Professor and the Associate Director of the group. He has been active in drinking water quality and treatment research for over 45 years, more recently focusing on contaminant adsorption to microplastics, microplastic removal through chemically assisted filtration, pathogen removal, perfluorinated compounds, cyanobacteria and their toxins, and biological filtration. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the Ontario Water Works Association (OWWA) and the Walkerton Clean Water Centre and currently serves on the OWWA Advocacy Steering Committee and the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association Drinking Water Quality Committee. Please note that Dr. Anderson is no longer accepting graduate students.
The past 15 years, Bill has maintained an email service drawing attention to items of interest to drinking water professionals including, for example, the latest research articles, regulatory updates, outbreak reports, topical issues, and media stories. Bill’s email service has expanded over time to include all interested individuals. These emails are now also archived here in a blog format as they are released, which can be explored by category or simply by scrolling through the posts below.
If you would like to join Bill’s email list for updates straight to your inbox, you can send an email to Bill to be added to the list.
Potential impacts of changing supply-water quality on drinking water distribution: A review
Not too long ago the Flint water crisis drew our attention to the observation that changing the raw water source to a drinking water treatment plant needs to be done with due care and diligence.
Persistence of Viruses by qPCR Downstream of Three Effluent-Dominated Rivers in the Western United States
If you are like me you probably wonder why pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) is being suggested by authors of this just published paper as a viral indicator (surrogate) for fecal contamination in water (instead of enteric viruses, adenoviruses or noroviruses).
Public Consultation Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality – Guideline Technical Document on Strontium
The deadlines for providing comments to Health Canada on their ‘Guidance document on the use of quantitative microbial risk assessment in drinking water’ and ‘Proposed guideline technical document on copper in drinking water’ documents have expired but a ‘Proposed guideline technical document on strontium in drinking water’ is now available for public comment at...
Identification, toxicity and control of iodinated disinfection byproducts in cooking with simulated chlor(am)inated tap water and iodized table salt
In an effort to avoid chlorinated disinfection byproduct (DBP) formation in distribution systems many drinking water utilities switched from free chlorine to chloramination.
Review of Epidemiological Studies of Drinking-Water Turbidity in Relation to Acute Gastrointestinal Illness
A review of “Epidemiological Studies of Drinking-Water Turbidity in Relation to Acute Gastrointestinal Illness” has been published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Growth and Extended Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in Soil Organic Matter
It is widely assumed that an important waterborne pathogen, Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7, is shed from warm blooded animals and in some instances is transported to a drinking water treatment plant intake/source.