Things are back to normal for City of North Battleford staff and water officials as the precautionary drinking water advisory has been lifted.
The advisory, issued by the Water Security Agency on Aug. 11, was finally lifted at 12:10 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon following completion of water tests this past weekend from the distribution system.
The results were negative for any contamination and those results were relayed to the Water Security Agency, who rescinded the advisory on Tuesday.
According to Kris Dushire, environment officer for the drinking water and wastewater management division, required samples from the distribution system have returned with acceptable results. The city can now return to its regular sampling intervals.
The problems began last Tuesday at the F.E. Holliday No. 2 water treatment plant, where partially-treated water bypassed the water treatment processes and flowed into the treated water reservoir of the plant. F.E. Holliday is one of two water treatment plants for the city and is the surface-water treatment plant, taking its water from the North Saskatchewan River.
The water quality alarms were sounded and the operations of the plant stopped immediately. That prompted the issuance of the precautionary drinking water advisory, as well as the commencement of flushing and other activities to prevent any of the water from getting into the distribution system.
At a news conference last Wednesday at City Hall, City Manager Jim Puffalt indicated that in all likelihood the partially-treated water was confined to the water treatment plant. He also said additional water testing was taking place.
At a city council meeting Monday, Puffalt updated councillors on what had been going on at the plant.
On Friday night they had received the water-borne parasites test results, which were “very revealing,” said Puffalt.
“They showed there were parasites present in the raw water coming into the treatment plant, but the treatment plant was working as it was engineered to and it’s taken it out. The water coming out of the treatment is clear, there’s no parasites in the water. So that was good news.”
As per the Water Security Agency protocol, additional testing was required and done on Saturday and Sunday, and the City hand-delivered those to the lab in Saskatoon on Sunday afternoon.
Those results were forwarded to the Water Services Board and Puffalt expressed confidence that the drinking water advisory would be lifted the next day. He also noted testing had been done since last week and “there’s nothing found in the water supply at all.”
As city officials expected, the advisory was indeed lifted Tuesday.
At Monday evening’s meeting of Battleford’s town council, it was noted there had been calls to Town Hall regarding the boil water order, but no such order had been issued for the community south of the river. The town uses well water.
Councillors noted it’s surprising how many people don’t realize Battleford’s water system is separate from North Battleford’s.
During the PDWA in North Battleford, a number of city residents and businesses, bought water at Battleford’s bulk water supply station.
