Carole Cousineau shows West Nipissing Municipal Council the brown water that comes out of her tap, during the council meeting held June 17 in Verner. Cousineau was among several residents to express frustration with the persistent water discolouration problem in Verner, and asking for relief. 
Carole Cousineau shows West Nipissing Municipal Council the brown water that comes out of her tap, during the council meeting held June 17 in Verner. Cousineau was among several residents to express frustration with the persistent water discolouration problem in Verner, and asking for relief. 
Gene Samarian came to the June 17 West Nipissing Council meeting in Verner intent on getting his message across. Protesting against the long-standing brown water problem in Verner, he disrupted the meeting repeatedly until police were called and expelled him. 
Gene Samarian came to the June 17 West Nipissing Council meeting in Verner intent on getting his message across. Protesting against the long-standing brown water problem in Verner, he disrupted the meeting repeatedly until police were called and expelled him. 
Gene Samarian came to the June 17 West Nipissing Council meeting in Verner intent on getting his message across. Protesting against the long-standing brown water problem in Verner, he disrupted the meeting repeatedly until police were called and expelled him.
Isabel Mosseler
Tribune
The June 17th meeting of West Nipissing council was held at the Club de l’Amitié in Verner, but one protester was far from friendly as he expressed concern about the condition of tap water in Verner. His unruly behaviour disrupted deliberations and ultimately led to the man’s arrest before the meeting could continue.
WN Council periodically takes its meetings to different communities in West Nipissing to encourage citizen participation and feedback. They went to Verner knowing full well that they were going to meet frustrated local citizens dealing with continual water woes, specifically discoloured water coming out of their taps. However, the level of protest by one man, who identified himself as Gene Samarian, ended up being too much for both council and the public; many did express sympathy for his frustration while simultaneously being critical of his tactics. The plan of council was to hold the meeting with a section devoted to Verner’s water issues, followed by an open exchange once the official portion of the meeting was concluded. Mr. Samarian put a very large spoke in that wheel.
About 5 minutes before the meeting started, Samarian paraded in front of council carrying a placard and loudly proclaiming, “I have a tap (…) it runs 24/7, 365 days a year. I encourage people to run your water 24/7, 365 days a year, to have crystal clean water. We pay $135 for unlimited water (…) Can I have a comment from anyone? Anyone of you 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 people (council and staff), before the meeting starts. How you feel about forcing a person with a disability to drink that nasty water and spend the little money I have on bottled water? (…) They’re poisoning our kids, they’re probably poisoning us, and who knows how much chemicals are in that water. I can’t even make pancakes with it. I have to use bottled water to make my pancakes, because my pancakes just taste disgusting. So does my coffee. I’m going to smoke this and come back and listen to the lies you guys tell.”
After he left, Mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon told the audience, “After the meeting officially closes, we will be opening the floor, and we will be here (…) to answer your questions about any issues.” The meeting began but after about 10 minutes, Samarian made another dramatic entrance, proceeding to interrupt the discussion by pacing in front of the council and assembly, showing his placards, proclaiming “I’m just locating myself over here. I have restless leg syndrome, so it’s a disability. Sorry… All right. I’m not disturbing your meeting. (…) You’re good. There’s no threat here. You can call the police.” Then he got up and started moving around again, “I guess I can’t hear properly, so I’m going to just locate myself over here (…) You can call the OPP. I’m not addressing you. You’re supposed to be addressing us.”
At this point, Madeleine Carré of the Club de l’Amitié, which is private property, pursued Mr. Samarian with a chair trying to get him to settle down. “I’m going to ask you to sit right here and watch the meeting with us,” she told him. Samarian responded, “I can’t sit. My legs are really stuck. It’s a disability.” Samarian again challenged her to call the police. After some back and forth during which Mrs. Carré kept an even tone, he said “I’m going to go over here because I’m scared now. You’re scaring me.” Mayor Rochon informed him that council procedure required him to sit, to which Samarian responded, “The procedure doesn’t override my disability. That’s policy. Ontario Human Rights Code is what I’m running under (…) You’re addressing me, so I’m not bothering you.”
Council tried to return to the meeting, but the antics continued as council tried to discuss agenda items in vain. CAO Jay Barbeau told Samarian the police would be called, at which point Samarian claimed he had Tourette’s Syndrome. Mayor Rochon told him, “There are residents here who would like to engage with council”; he responded, “There are residents here who would like clean water.” He refused to leave and threatened to sue, claiming the right to protest.
Finally, Coun. Georges Pharand called for a recess, saying, “I can’t give what we’re discussing the attention that it deserves.” Fifteen minutes into the meeting, a recess was called. When OPP officers arrived and counselled Samarian to leave the premises, his refusal led to his arrest and removal, with some scattered applause in the crowd. The recess took about 25 minutes before the matter was resolved so that the meeting could resume. Because of Samarian’s threat of legal action, CAO Barbeau later requested audience members to sign a form as witness to the disturbances, which many readily did.
Council provides update on water situation
Council did address the water situation in the latter part of the meeting, providing some historical perspective and detailing efforts to secure adequate funding to fix the issue that has been plaguing some residents since 2019. Mayor and council reiterated that they are calling for urgent support from upper levels of government to bring long-overdue relief, but this requires a major infrastructure overhaul at a very heavy price tag.
The problem originates in the water source itself — the Veuve River — which is high in manganese, a naturally occurring mineral that causes discolouration and challenges in treatment. The Ministry of the Environment’s past restrictions on chlorine dioxide, once used to manage the issue but found to be a possible carcinogen, limited the municipality’s ability to maintain water clarity. Since then, staff have turned to potassium permanganate, which has no such regulatory limits, but the water quality remains unstable, particularly in the summer months when manganese levels spike.
Despite routine flushing and swabbing of pipes, Barbeau acknowledged, “We’re just basically fighting a losing battle,” prompting the municipality to develop plans to pipe in water from the more reliable Sturgeon River system, which currently serves Cache Bay and Sturgeon Falls. But that fix comes with a staggering price tag. “The only fix you’re going to have is basically changing the water source,” Barbeau stated. “And the size of the fund [we’re applying for] is about $27 million.”
Mayor Thorne Rochon emphasized that water and wastewater projects are not paid through general tax revenue, but by the users of the system on their water bill, as dictated by the province. That means that any major construction would normally be financed by the roughly 3,300 households tied to the municipal water system. “When you look at a $17 million project and you divide that by 3,300, that’s $5,000 per household,” she pointed out. “We are trying to secure that money from other levels of government to mitigate the cost to the individual households.”
The push for funding has been ongoing for years. In April 2024, Director of Infrastructure Elizabeth Henning and Mayor Thorne Rochon met with the Associate Minister of Infrastructure, only to learn that their project did not meet provincial priorities at the time, which were narrowly focused on new housing developments. “Unless you can tell us that there’s going to be 1,000 new homes, which we can’t do in this community,” Rochon said, “you’re not getting funded.”
A more recent announcement of a $173 million province-wide health and safety infrastructure fund gave some hope. The application has now been submitted, and the municipality is waiting on word. “Even if we get a partial yes on this fund, we can likely go to the federal government and see whether there is any matching funds,” the Mayor added, though she noted that federal investment in infrastructure has been limited lately.
Peter Ming, Manager of Water and Wastewater, said staff are working with consultants to identify the most efficient way to phase in improvements, if only partial funding comes through. That would include replacing the aging water tower in Verner and beginning construction of the new feeder main within the town’s limits. “The existing water tower in Verner is undersized for any kind of expansion,” he said. While some emergency repairs were made to the tank liner this summer, “to do the entire repair would have cost a little over a million dollars.”
Council also explored short-term, stopgap measures to improve water quality at the household level. Councillor Pellerin suggested exploring residential filtration systems, such as reverse osmosis and charcoal filters, already in use by some residents. While staff expressed caution about endorsing home-based solutions — noting equity, cost of maintenance, and lack of long-term viability — councillors agreed the idea deserved further examination. “Even if it’s a temporary solution, we have to start thinking about it,” said Councillor Pharand, saying it was time to think outside the box. “If we could resolve the problem once and for all permanently overnight, we would all do it if it was possible. It’s not because we’re doing nothing about it.”
Mayor Rochon added that once the new system is in place, there will be cost savings from eliminating the need to run two separate treatment facilities — a rare burden for a community of just 15,000. “There are cost savings for the municipality,” she said. “But we still want to get the best price for CP.”
For now, the community waits — not passively, but with determination. “We keep going to these municipal conferences in Toronto and Ottawa because it’s our opportunity to be face-to-face with ministers and say, ‘listen, this is what people are having to bathe in and wash their clothes and their children and drink,’” said Councillor Pharand. “And I know we get criticized for going to these conferences (…) but I don’t care. We will continue to go and bang our fists on this table until we get some money from the province to do this.”
Residents plead for short-term relief
Following the meeting, Verner residents got their chance to speak out, making passionate pleas and providing community-driven suggestions. Individuals and families described the impact of unreliable water on their daily lives.
“We’ve been hearing that for a long time — long-term, long-term,” said Pierre Amyotte. “You’re asking us to wait another five, six, maybe 10 years for something to actually come through. What do we do in the meantime? Who’s paying? I mean, we’re paying our water bill. Why?”
