Excessive rainfall has forced the City of Weyburn to declare a State of Emergency following an electrical failure at the city's waste water treatment plant.
This has resulted in civic leaders calling on city residents to adhere to the following requests:
- do no use sump pumps. The city system can not cope with additional water.
- Collect drinking water.
- A precautionary boil water advisory has been issued.
"After receiving roughly 100 millimeters (approximately 4.0 inches) of rainfall in the past 24 hours, the city's infrastructure has been taxed to the limit," said Mayor Debra Button. "City crews are working to keep the system functioning but we are asking all city residents to help us deal with this emergency situation. "We have issued a precautionary boil water advisory because of the remote possibility that sump pumps were engaged in homes that experienced sewer back-ups earlier in the day moved grey or black water into the storm drains and, ultimately, the river. Since the City draws its water supply from river there is a slight chance that water in the area of our intake has been contaminated."
"At this point the City has one million gallons of water in its storage system so our water supply is presently safe to collect, however, we can't predict when this supply will be used up so as a precaution residents will want to boil water prior to using for cooking or personal consumption," she added.
All available city official and technical personnel are currently on duty in a bid to cope with this unprecedented natural emergency.
"All residents of southeast Saskatchewan are doing their best in the face of extreme flooding. We know we are not alone in dealing with this challenge but I want all Weyburn residents to know that we did everything possible to prepare for this emergency and are doing all we can to minimize the impact on our residents. This is the biggest challenge we've had to deal with in years but I'm proud of the way our team handled preparations for this and how they are handling its arrival. In the meantime I'd call on all residents of the City to assist us by reducing their demands on our infrastructure where possible," Mayor Button concluded.
