Sudbury Ontario - The CP tracks that run beside Ramsey Lake, at the end of Somerset Street off Howey Drive, served as the backdrop Sunday for an event to mark World Water Day.
 
About 25 people attended the afternoon event organized by the Sudbury chapter of the Council of Canadians.
 
Just before it started, a train with 110-120 cars went by just feet away from where people were gathered.
 
World Water Day is a United Nations initiative to celebrate clean water and to bring attention to the fact many people don't have access to it.
 
Greater Sudbury Council, past and present, came under fire for not doing enough to protect fresh water sources, such as Ramsey Lake.
 
Economics professor David Robinson, who ran for the Green Party in the 5 Feb 2015 byelection, said the biggest thing we can do to address concerns about water in the rest of the world is "just get a carbon tax in Ontario."
 
He pointed to the rail tracks behind him saying they weren't necessary anymore and that it would make good economic sense to move them.
 
"The city would gain a great deal in terms of increased property values, it would gain a great deal in terms of reduced costs downtown, and land that could be developed," he said.
 
The railroad would save millions of dollars a year if tracks were re-routed because they wouldn't have to slow trains down when they passed through the city.
 
"So there's an economic argument, a strong one, purely economic, for getting the tracks out of here," said Robinson.
 
Economically, the rail lines are a dinosaur, said Robinson.
 
"Now there has been another dinosaur in the city. That's the council refusing to look at its own official master plan that says they'll get rid of the tracks if there's any feasible way to do it.
 
"I'm hoping the new council aren't economic dinosaurs, and I'm hoping that, in the process of looking at the benefits to the city, they're going to do something for Ramsey Lake and water."
 
Another member of the Council of Canadians, Margaret Anne Buchanan, expressed disappointment that two city councillors invited to participate in the water ceremony didn't attend.
 
The Council of Canadians' Elaine Porter said her group is not alone in being alarmed at the 7 Mar 2015 derailment of about three dozen CN Rail cars three kilometres from Gogama.
 
Several of the cars caught fire and exploded, and some ended up in the Makami River and other water sources.
 
The Gogama incident, as well as another derailment and fire in the same area 15 Feb 2015 "have given us a reason to question how likely it is there will be an accident here behind us," said Porter, pointing to the CP rails.
 
Rail companies are mandated to transport hazardous materials whether they want to or not, she said.
 
"So they don't have a choice, but we don't know what hazardous materials are being hauled through Sudbury. We don't have a right to know."
 
Records are available after rail shipments pass through communities of what was contained in cars.
 
Porter said she has reviewed Transport Canada investigations into rail safety, "and they're chilling, even more chilling than the weather is today to look at them."
 
Rail infrastructure is aging, with some equipment almost 30-years-old.
 
She said the Wahnapitae train derailment of July 2013 was caused by wheel-bearing failure.
 
In that incident, 11 of 62 rail cars derailed, and five cars and half of the 24 containers they were carrying fell into the Wahnapitae River after a trestle collapsed.
 
Another factor contributing to rail accidents is human error, which is inevitable when people are running complex systems.
 
Richard Eberhardt spoke on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada, urging those attending to think about people in the world who are suffering an immediate shortage of water.
 
Canadians are lucky to have plenty of fresh water, but we're using too much and we're wasting it every day, said Eberhardt.
 
He said the NDP held a summit here two years ago on rail safety where experts spoke about the impact a major petroleum derailment would have on Ramsey Lake," essentially destroying our main water source as far into the future as we can imagine."
 
Eberhardt said he's also worried about urban development that "ignores" the impact on water.
 
"The fact the city's getting around to a source water study finally is good, but we're at a hundred years of development in this city, without having thought that stuff through."
 
Lilly Noble of the Ramsey Lake Stewardship Committee and the Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury talked about how some are advocating crude oil be transported by pipeline rather than rail cars.
 
"But if you look at the history of pipelines, you can see also they have serious problems as well," said Noble.
 
"They leak, they rupture."
 
In 2010, a million gallons of diluted bitumen spilled into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan when a pipeline ruptured there.
 
"It's taken four years, they're still cleaning it up, US$1 billion to do that, and parts of that area of the river they can't clean up because it would be harmful to even try."
 
The proposed Energy East pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick would travel through several northern communities such as Hearst, Kapuskasing, and Smooth Rock Falls, and through 50 first nations.
 
The oil wouldn't be for Canadian consumption, but for export by tanker.
 
Andre Clement, head of the Sudbury chapter of the Council of Canadians, urged Sudburians to remember two numbers.
 
One is 47, the number of people killed in the Lake Megantic train disaster two summers ago.
 
The other is 1,838, the number of water advisories issued in January 2015 in Canada.
 
That meant there were 1,838 communities where drinking water wasn't considered safe, many were on first nations.
 
He and two other members of the Sudbury chapter visited Gogama last week and concluded the community would have been wiped out by the fires that broke out after the crash had it occurred in the village.
 
Three youngsters attended the World Water Day event and had their say about the vital resource.
 
"We need water 'cause if we don't have any water on the earth, we can all die," said seven-year-old Kissity Dagneault.
 
Samantha Naokegijig, 11, said "water is pretty much everything. No living thing can exist without it. But if we don't help ourselves, then we can't help anybody else, so we've got to protect Ramsey Lake."
 
Four-year-old Kierra Pheasant had her own reason for protecting water sources.
 
"The animals all need water," she said.
 
John Lindsay, chair of the Minnow Lake Community Action network, was also disappointed no city councillor attended the World Water day event.
 
"This is our playground," he said of Ramsey Lake, "and we have to protect it, and if moving the rail line away from it does that, then I think we're all for it."

Carol Mulligan.