By Chelsea Laskowski

POLL: Brown water banished in Birch Hills

Jul 15, 2014 | 4:36 PM

Confusion and questions arose in Birch Hills in the past week as the water streaming from residents’ taps took on a brown hue.

By Tuesday, the water was running clear from the taps.

A town hall administrator said they narrowed the cause to two options. Since water was running clear from the treatment centre, the cause had to be in the distribution.

The first possibility is a pressure issue as water was sent from the centre, or depressurization from routine maintenance that had been planned for last Monday.

The level of extra care taken with the water while it was brown varied between households.

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“It [the water] was so dark that you didn’t even want to have a shower in it. That’s how bad it was,” said Justina Dyck. “I have to do my laundry in it, but other than that I do not use the water really.”

Her husband has been hauling in water on his way home from Melfort for drinking and cooking. Dyck has a friend who couldn’t fill their pool because of the water quality.

Other residents e-mailed paNOW on Monday with their concerns, one saying she pays $100 for water in a month, but recently she couldn’t even use it to bathe her child.

Wendy Chicoine was not quite as concerned or upset. She has been boiling her cooking water and the tint of the water running from the taps meant some extra cleaning.

“Everybody’s complaining about it—everybody. Some people are complaining it’s making their dishwashers brown and their washers brown. Some people won’t drink it,” Chicoine said.

She has always bought her drinking water, so that hasn’t changed for her.

Despite the off colour, six separate samples of water from Wednesday and Thursday were confirmed safe to drink by the provincial disease control lab quality.

The community had previously issued a boil water advisory for less than 30 households because of the water main repair they had planned. The advisory was only for people in that area. After the depressurization of that system, the Water Security Agency needed to confirm that drinking water is safe for consumption.

That confirmation came on Tuesday.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk