Sign up for the battlefordsNOW newsletter

Laundromats reopen; oil spill cleanup continues

Jul 29, 2016 | 1:55 PM

People who rely on laundromats in North Battleford will soon have clean clothes again.

Restrictions on water usage remain in place, including car washes operating on city water. But city staff did say Friday that laundromats could operate again, due to the necessity of the service they provide.

The City of North Battleford has been relying on well water for the past week, following the contamination of the North Saskatchewan River by an oil spill. Through mandatory conservation, the supply has not run short, and reservoirs have been refilling at night. The city has since reached an agreement with the Town of Battleford to buy treated water.

“Strong cooperation between the two communities has really relieved a lot of the pressure in terms of the potential risks in those areas,” Emergency Management Commissioner Duane McKay said Friday, July 29. “Construction of the pipeline between the two communities is moving on pace, and should be in place. We don’t see any significant risk there, in terms of managing the overall emergency, so that’s another good piece of progress.”

Construction was set to begin Friday on the six-inch water line, which will be able to provide 20 per cent of the normal capacity of the idle F.E. Holliday Water Treatment Plant. The pipe, however, will not function in the winter. Alternate sources of water, such as additional wells and a filtration system for the contaminated river water, were still being explored.

The oil spill has affected water supplies for an estimated 17,000 people in the Battlefords area and 45,000 in the Prince Albert region.

Wes Kotyk, an official with the Ministry of Environment, said crews continued to focus on cleanup of the shoreline between the point of the spill and the Highway 21 bridge. So far they had not found any impact on the north shore of the river, so efforts were focused on the south bank. Experts were investigating the test results that were starting to come back. He said there had been 28 animals killed by the oil spill so far, with another 11 recovering.

Laurie Pushor, Deputy Minister of the Economy, said Husky is required to complete a review on the spill within 90 days of the initial incident support. The government will publicly release its full report.

 

Geoff Smith is battlefordsNOW’s News Director, business and agriculture reporter. He can be reached at gsmith@jpbg.ca or tweet him @smithco.