Corporation of the Village of McBride
Update Concerning
Water Intake System
The turbidity issue at the Water Treatment Plant Intake is subsiding and conservation of water for households and businesses can resume to normal.
This past weekend turbidity at the Dominion Creek water intake system spiked suddenly to 7. This was a result of mud and debris coming down the mountain into the water reservoir pond and intake system. This event created an emergency as the Water Treatment Plant would not be able to adequately treat water for safe usage of any sort due to this level of turbidity. The Village then placed an emergency water conservation notice for all businesses and residents until the situation could be investigated and resolved.
This water conservation notice was issued due to the Village suddenly having to rely solely on the existing volume of water in the intake tanks as of the morning of June 14, 2020 and the inability to adequately treat water.
A further event at the creek and intake water system occurred on Sunday, June 14, 2020 in the evening at 10 pm whereby Public Works Staff worked until 3 am Monday morning to resolve.
The turbidity at the treatment plant has been slowly stabilizing over the last few days. As of yesterday evening, turbidity was back down to 1.1. The Village is working closely with Northern Health regarding the Village’s water system and water quality.
If turbidity spikes again due to extreme rain events or sudden increase of temperatures causing freshet activity, the Village may need to issue another notice of water conservation.
Turbidity is the cloudiness or haziness of a fluid caused by large numbers of individual particles that are generally invisible to the naked eye, similar to smoke in air.
The measurement of turbidity is a key test of water quality. Normal turbidity levels for the Village must be under 1.0 for a sustained period of time. At this time given the freshet season and unstable turbidity levels Northern Health requires the Village to continue to issue a boil water notice.
View the Boil Water Notice: www.mcbride.ca/news
