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Boil Water Order in Tisdale |
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| FTLComm - Tisdale - Wednesday, January 14, 2003 | ||||||
| A boil water order for people on Tisdale's municipal water system went into effect
yesterday. I do not listen to radio during the day and it was a shock to see this
notice taped to the front door of the Tisdale post office. I really should not have been shocked because accidents can happen and sometime things quit working. In this case apparently a chlorination system at a well site failed during Monday night and untreated water was pumped into the town producing relatively low chlorine levels. It is the nature of a municipal water system to have water portions of the system that would harbour bacteria and without chlorine in the water this could pose a potential danger. One of the things that we must be aware of is that individuals vary considerably in their susceptibility to mild bacteria that others would handle with ease.  I talked to
many downtown today about the situation and most people downplayed the importance
of the situation as they felt it was a mere mechanical failure and did not pose a
threat to the town. Most felt that the problem would be cleared up by Friday and
no one I talked to was alarmed. I do not share this attitude and consider any minor
threat like this to be a serious matter as does both provincial and local government.One individual I talked to lives in Star City where a "boil water order" has been in effect for the past year and a half. The village used to get its water from a local well source and when the boil water problem came up they switched over to the Melfort area water pipeline. This has not solved the problem as the lines within the community continue to be contaminated. It is important to note that this is the worry here in Tisdale that even though the original problem was a well chlorination problem it is the low levels of chlorine in the town's distribution system that poses the threat. I remember well when bottle water first began appearing in stores and wondered why anyone would pay a dollar or more for a bottle of what comes from the tap almost free. Studies of bottle water for many years showed that it was not worth the money and the regular tap water was as good or better in some cases. Apparently things have changed as more and more homes have realised that buy water in the jug is a simple investment. The members of my own family all have water coolers and we are the only ones who have not purchased one of these devises. I always reasoned that after all we didn't live in Regina and had good water here in Tisdale. Looks like that hypothesis is historical. |
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