The Chief Environmental Health Officer has lifted the precautionary boil water advisory for Hay River, Kátł’odeeche, Enterprise and Kakisa.
According to the announcement issued today by Chief Environmental Health Officer Chirag Rohit, regular use of drinking water can resume after testing showed turbidity levels are within national drinking water standards.
The Department of Health and Social Services issued a list of recommendations for households and businesses, to flush their water supply by draining and cleaning water-holding tanks and running all cold water faucets and drinking fountains for one minute before use. The department also recommended to flush and clean all water-using equipment, for at least one minute.
A full list of recommendations can be found on the Health and Social Services webpages.
More information on how to drain and clean water-holding tanks is available on the social services webpages
On May 24, a message from the acting Chief Environmental Health Officer cautioned users of the Hay River drinking water system to boil their drinking water for at least one minute.
According to the message, the advisory was “precautionary in nature” after “high turbidity” or muddy water was observed in the treated water and water distribution system.
The water treatment plant was not able to properly treat the water due to the “very high turbidity” in the source water.
Since the fall, a number of water advisories were issued for communities in the southern part of the N.W.T. including Hay River, Kátł’odeeche, Kakisa, Enterprise and Fort Liard as well as central and northern regions. Wekweèti, Wrigley and Sachs Harbour were also placed under advisories due to technical failures at their water treatment plants.
Sachs Harbour, Fort Liard and Colville Lake are under active drinking water advisories. The community of Colville Lake has been under a boil water advisory for more than two decades due to infrastructure issues.
Back in November, Chief Environmental Health Officer Dr. Chirag Rohit reported that lakewater quality was the cause of high levels of trihalomethanes (THMs) behind advisories that were in effect up to February this year for Hay River, Kátł’odeeche, Kakisa and Enterpirse.
