By Kellah Lavoie

Water advisory north of P.A.

Jun 15, 2011 | 3:48 PM

Residents north of Prince Albert should be boiling their water before drinking it.

The water advisory from the Prince Albert Rural Water Utility comes after the water was shut off in the area early today to connect the waterline to the new RCMP detachment. The line depressurized, when this happens the Ministry of Environment automatically puts on a boil water advisory, said Ken

Danger, general manager of the Prince Albert Rural Water Utility.

“The water line that is affected goes north, just a little bit past Spruce Home, and basically from there back to Prince Albert,” he said, explaining everyone north of the North Saskatchewan River should be taking precaution. It affects about 300 homes.

The water utility knew about the disruption last week.

National

Ottawa to remove 30% investment cap for Canadian pension funds

24m ago

Budget woes

Golf and curling centre faces grim season without financial boost

3h ago

Raiders AGM

Raiders impact on Prince Albert local economy continues to go up: AGM report

22h ago

“The city phoned us at the end of last week and told us that they were going to be turning the water off, actually to our connection there, to accommodate this, so… we were aware this was going to happen, and we probably… didn’t have enough foresight at the moment to do anything different,” he said.

The risk of contamination is low, but precaution needs to be taken.

The advisory will likely last through the weekend.

“When we can assure there hasn’t been any contamination, that the chlorine residual is killing any potential bacteria, those kinds of things, then the drinking water advisory can be listed,” he said, explaining they need clean water samples taken 24 hours apart.

“With the weekend coming… we have to send these samples to Saskatoon, the research council in Saskatoon, I fully expect that we will be into next week before it is lifted.”

It is not the first issue they have had recently. A smaller scale water advisory was put in place on Tuesday, when the contractor snagged a water line.

Residents are encouraged to boil their water for at least one minute before drinking it, using it to wash food, do dishes or brush teeth.

klavoie@panow.com