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Ucluelet to host Town Hall on water

“There’s no problems health-wise with our water," said Ucluelet mayor Dianne St. Jacques.
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During Ucluelet's last Town Hall water meeting in 2014

Down about your water being brown? The district wants to hear from you.

Ucluelet is hosting a Town Hall Water Meeting at the community centre at 7 p.m on Nov. 1.

It’s always good to keep people informed as to what’s going on with our water,” Ucluelet mayor Dianne St. Jacques told the Westerly News.

Communication is important and the more info we can get out there, and the more questions we can answer, the more comfortable people will feel about Ucluelet water.”

Concerns have reemerged over the colour of the community’s tap water and the district is reassuring locals that, despite its murkiness, the water is safe to drink and the discolouration is due to naturally occurring iron and manganese.

During Ucluelet’s most recent Town Hall Water Meeting, hosted in 2014, district officials explained a municipal water filtration system could bring clearer water but would cost taxpayers roughly $7 million.

St. Jacques said Nov. 1’s meeting will provide a refresher for locals who attended in 2014 and bring new locals up to speed on the issue.

New people are coming and going in the community quite a bit so lots of folks that have moved here since the last water meeting maybe aren’t as aware of the minerals that are in our water and what effects that can have and, mostly, that it is healthy,” she said. “There’s no problems health-wise with our water.”

Unlike the 2014 meeting, Nov. 1’s is expected to include representation from Island Health.

They’ve confirmed that they will attend to answer questions about the safety of the water and the testing and regulatory stuff that they follow,” St. Jacques said.

When we send them our samples, they stay on top of the quality of water. I think, that’s interesting and good for people to know. It goes beyond just our [district] staff, who do a great job, it also goes to Island Health on a regular basis and that is their job as well to make sure that every communities’ water system is running to proper standards, which ours is.”

 

 



Andrew Bailey

About the Author: Andrew Bailey

I arrived at the Westerly News as a reporter and photographer in January 2012.
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