Recently I was asked about the water in the Village of Montrose by local people and people outside the community.
I understand their concerns as water is a topic of conversation all over the country with flooding in places and drought in others. Many communities are dealing with contaminated water. Water provides the basics of a healthy life and also includes providing power.
Through the month, members of staff take samples at various locations in the Village and at the well site. These samples are then taken to a lab to be analyzed.
Our samples this spring came back showing a count of coliform in certain parts of the distribution area.
The one thing we have going for us is that the coliform count was from rotting vegetation, not fecal matter or other nasty things that can get into the water system.
Some people can drink water with a count of coliform like our system has and it doesn’t affect them. I’ve heard people in the area say they have been drinking the water all their lives without problems.
Other people in the area feel the effect of bad water right away. I also say for the people that feel sick from tainted water that we are doing everything possible to protect them by making our water safe. In my opinion this is the way it is to be done. Some would say, “Why did you respond so quickly?”
We have to respond immediately to this situation in particular. The health of the people of this community is of utmost priority. Not everyone is in perfect health and something like this could be a problem to those with compromised health. When the CAO received the report he informed the health authorities and they put on a “boil water” restriction.
There are other things that can be done to ensure us of safe drinking water. At this time I would rather not go there, it is too controversial. We will leave that for another column when I have more information.
Just know that the staff has been doing everything they can to make sure this issue is being taken care of properly. We are blessed with the fact that this is a closed water system. We are not using surface water from a creek. All that has to be done now is to find the reason for this count of coliform and we will be back on track.
In closing I would like to thank the staff for being so diligent in dealing with this matter. I know it can be a very frustrating time.
I would also like to thank the people of this community for their patience while we deal with this problem.
Don Duclos is a councillor with the Village of Montrose