Situation Update - August 9-12 City of Castlegar Boil Water Notice
By City of Castlegar
City of Castlegar residents and businesses serviced by the City’s water system were under a Boil Water Notice August 9-12, 2024, following a widespread power outage.
“Providing safe, clean, and reliable drinking water is, and continues to be, a priority for the City,” says City of Castlegar Mayor, Maria McFaddin. “City-wide Boil Water Notices are not common in Castlegar, and we want to provide more information on what happened following the power outage so our residents and businesses have an understanding of what happened and how the City responded.”
The City-wide power outage on Friday, August 9 impacted our water treatment center. The City’s infrastructure was prepared for power outages, and the backup generator kicked in as it was set up to do during the outage. What happened differently during this power outage is that the chlorination pump faulted, and the backup chlorine pump failed to start.
Our team was alerted and responded immediately; however, before they arrived, a relatively small amount of unchlorinated water entered the water system, so they notified Interior Health immediately. At this point, the relatively small amount of unchlorinated water was sitting in the transmission line and was not distributed throughout the system.
This delay allowed the City and Interior Health time to assess the situation, formulate a response, and take appropriate action. Interior Health decided the proper precautionary measure was to issue a Boil Water Notice.
The City issued the Boil Water Notice and shared this information with the community through its website, a news release to local (print, radio, and online) media, posted on the City’s Facebook page, and issued an emergency alert using Voyent Alert which sent notifications to 2,192 registered accounts via text, email, and phone.
After the Boil Water Notice was issued and the community was notified, Interior Health directed the City to release the unchlorinated water that was sitting in the transmission line into the distribution system using a distributed approach. Our team monitored chlorine levels throughout the system to ensure there were no anomalies. On Sunday, August 11, once Interior Health and our team was satisfied that the unchlorinated water had been sufficiently diluted and flushed through the system, water samples were taken and sent to a local company, Passmore Labs Ltd., for analysis.
On Monday, August 12, the City received water sampling results indicating that the water was safe, and the Boil Water Notice was no longer required. The City used the same public notification process as when the Boil Water Notice was issued.
Our team investigated why the chlorination pump failed and the backup pump failed to start and has rectified the situation and taken action to minimize the chance of something like this happening again. Our team debriefed this week, and we will update our water treatment emergency response plan to incorporate lessons learned during this event.
The City recognizes the inconvenience of the Boil Water Notice and sincerely appreciates the community’s patience and understanding during this situation.
REGISTER TO RECEIVE EMERGENCY ALERTS
The City recognizes the importance of providing timely water quality information to the community. We encourage residents and businesses to register to receive future emergency alerts via text, email, or voice call at https://voyent-alert.com/community/.
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