Your tap water is safe, Callander residents. If you’ve experienced any discoloration this week, that’s because the town was flushing the pipes. The flushing raises minerals such as manganese to the surface which can temporarily discolour your tap water.
The flushing coincided with a very noticeable increase in the lake’s algae, especially visible in Callander Bay where the warm water sits low and there hasn’t been much wind to shake it out.
Many residents took the discoloured water as a sign the algae was coming through their taps. Not the case, the municipality assured.
“Everything is fine,” with the water source, explained Ashley Bilodeau, Callander’s senior municipal director. “We’re flushing the pipes, which is why some residents experienced discoloured water.”
“It has nothing to do with the algae,” she assured.
See: Callander continues to work toward clear water
Also, the pipe flushing concluded this Friday, so any discoloration should soon disappear completely. Each spring and fall the municipality flushes the water pipes, Bilodeau clarified.
However, the water should not be used if untreated. Don’t go to the lake and start drinking, or take a bucket of lake water home to bathe little Billy in. The health unit is aware of the blue-green algae bloom in parts of Lake Nipissing, and they remind all residents to not drink or cook or bathe in untreated lake water for the time being.
“Boiling or using private water treatment systems will not eliminate the toxins,” the health unit noted. Some types of blue-green algae can produce cyanotoxins, including a group of toxins called microcystins. However, Callander’s municipal water treatment plant run by OCWA -the Ontario Clean Water Agency — safely processes the water.
“If there was any hazard to our residents,” Bilodeau added, “we are mandated to inform the health unit and our residents about the issue.” Everything concerning treating municipal water supplies “is severely regulated,” and “if there was an issue with drinking water, we would tell the public.”
As for algae in the town’s drinking water, “that could not happen,” Bilodeau concluded.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
