Broken Koebels

Stan and Frank Koebel were sentenced today.
Their negligence was directly responsible for seven deaths and over two thousand sickened people. Some of those sickened people have not yet recovered.
Some of them never will.
The Koebels were in charge of the water supply in Walkerton, Ontario. For those of you with a short memory for scandal, they deliberately falsified records, neglected to monitor chlorine levels, and ignored repeated warnings that the water was contaminated with E. coli bacteria.
An inquiry seemed to place equal blame on the Koebels and their putative boss, the provincial government. The government "failed to make reporting of positive tests for contamination mandatory" and the Koebels were not properly trained to do their jobs.
A couple of thoughts spring to mind here. Let's create a little town somewhere in Ontario. We'll call it Breadbinville. Congratulations: you're in charge of the water supply in Breadbinville. What was that? You don't know the first thing about keeping water safe to drink? Well, there's seven thousand Breadbinvillians who expect their water to be safe, so anything you don't know, don't you think you'd, umm, ASK?
Let's shove that issue aside for a second: After all, you know the basics of the job...how to monitor, how to chlorinate, what the warning signs for contamination look like. Now, let's trigger those alarms. Let's have somebody offstage somewhere dump a whole bunch of manure into one of the town wells.
Oh-oh. You've tested positive for E. coli 0157:H7 and campylobacter jejuni. This stuff shouldn't be here. This stuff will make people sick. Could even kill them.
Your next move? Time's ticking.
I can't speak for you, but I know I'd be on the phone with Somebody Important pretty damn quick. I wouldn't have to check to see if my boss, the government, required me to inform them of this. The government shouldn't have to tell people this is mandatory. Anybody with the brains God gave a wombat would know they couldn't just ignore this and hope it would go away.
Evidently Stan and Frank Koebel don't have the brains God gave a wombat, because it took them days to puzzle out what to do.
Now, there are those in Walkerton who want the brothers' heads. There seem to be many more who feel they've suffered enough. These latter are either saints or people with acute bleeding heart syndrome.
Seven deaths.
Twenty three hundred people sickened.
The most the Koebels could receive was two years in jail. Stan got one year. His brother got nine months of house arrest.
Let's do the math together, shall we?
Twenty three hundred people ill. That works out to just a titch over three hours of jail time per person, for Frank Koebel.. And I haven't even put a premium on the seven deaths. Stan gets less than three hours of comfortable time in his own house, per person his actions affected.
I think these sentences are eminently fair, if you'll allow me one...very minor...addition to them. It'd have to do with the water supply. Just a little E coli 0157:H7 and campylobacter jejuni. Just a pinch.
But I wouldn't tell the government about this one.