By Geoff Smith

Water advisory for North Battleford lifted

Jul 15, 2016 | 3:44 PM

Staff with the city of North Battleford want to know how it can avoid another lengthy drinking water advisory.

The precautionary drinking water advisory was lifted Friday, July 15, nine days after people across the city were first advised to boil their tap water before drinking it. The advisory was prompted by a leak of treated water from a faulty valve during scheduled maintenance at the water tower.

Mayor Ian Hamilton said it was a “very long, trying week” that affected residents and businesses, but he wouldn’t describe himself as frustrated at the situation.

“It’s been one of those things that we wanted to deal with on a shorter-term basis, but again, the safety of the users was paramount,” Hamilton said. He added the city will discuss with the Water Security Agency, which issued the advisory, how it can prevent such a situation in the future.

“Because all the things that were being followed, all the protocols, with our contractors who were doing the work on the water tower… following proper procedures to make sure the water was safe to consume. We’ll just work with them and make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” he said.

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In a news release, the city said the contractor followed proper standards for disinfection, and it was chlorinated water that got into the closed distribution system. Repairs then had to be completed on the water tower before the water system could be tested, and those repairs were held up by rain.

“We wish it hadn’t been that long,” Hamilton said. “We thought that maybe, again, that’s why we have to ensure that maybe we follow up with the Water Security Agency to find out how we could have mitigated this earlier.”

The city also encouraged anyone who hasn’t done so to sign up for its Rapid Alert notification system. While it automatically dials listed lines in the phone book to provide a recorded message, people who aren’t listed or only use a cell phone can register to receive calls, text messages, faxes, emails, or pages.

Geoff Smith is battlefordsNOW’s News Director, business and agriculture reporter. He can be reached at gsmith@jpbg.ca or tweet him @smithco. Concerns regarding this story can be addressed to Geoff at 306-446-6397.