Atikokan water still showing bacteria

Atikokan residents are being advised to keep boiling their water after yet another sample tested positive for disease-causing bacteria last Friday.
“It was the same problem. The Cryptosporidium was still in it,” Atikokan Mayor Dennis Brown said yesterday, adding the Ontario Clean Water Agency was working to resolve the problem.
Peter Fox, OCWA’s client services rep, could not be reached for comment by press time.
But Bill Limerick, environmental health team leader with the Northwestern Health Unit, said unless the water treatment plant was a full-membrane system designed to remove absolutely everything, there were no guarantees Cryptosporidium wouldn’t show up when the water’s turbidity increased–especially with the low water and taking apart of beaver dams to ensure a water supply.
“It’s the watershed and the water supply,” he said yesterday, noting the plant would be able to deal with it in normal water conditions.
The Northwestern Health Unit first advised Atikokan residents to boil their water for five minutes–which kills the whole cyst–before consumption on Oct. 16–more than a month after a sample taken Sept. 9 tested positive for Cryptosporidium.
“It’s an inconvenience and an expense,” Mayor Brown said, noting many people were buying bottled water instead of boiling it. But that’s a cost the municipality isn’t willing to absorb.
“It’s up to them if they’re going to do that. [But] I really have to admire the people of Atikokan after all they’ve gone through,“ he added.
Meanwhile, two tenders were opened yesterday as Atikokan looks to replace a faulty water heater at the municipal pool that sent 19 people to hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning back on Oct. 20.
Five of those people had to be airlifted to Minneapolis for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber, with their expenses picked up by the municipality.
Mayor Brown said the town was aiming to have the new water heater in place by Nov. 16, with approval needed from the Technical Standards and Safety Authority and chief medical officer of health before people can start swimming there again.
Council there also has its fire chief looking into having carbon monoxide detectors installed at the pool. Mayor Brown said concerns with that revolved around false alarms but that they were trying to work that out.
“It is the wish of council that detectors go in,” he added.