Boil-water advisory lifted in Winnipeg

By: Bartley Kives Posted: 3:37 PM CST Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015 Last Modified: 6:40 PM CST Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015 | Updates

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Go ahead and drink the tap water, Winnipeg.

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Go ahead and drink the tap water, Winnipeg.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/01/2015 (3368 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Go ahead and drink the tap water, Winnipeg.

The two-day pre‎cautionary boil-water order is over, Mayor Brian Bowman declared, first on Twitter and YouTube.

“I’m pleased to let you know that the temporary boil-water advisory for the City of Winnipeg has been lifted,” Bowman said in a YouTube video posted to the City of Winnipeg’s channel Thursday afternoon.

Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman drinks a glass of tap water as Diane Sacher, director of the city's water and waste department speaks Thursday at a press conference announcing the boil-water advisory had been lifted. — Wayne Glowacki / Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman drinks a glass of tap water as Diane Sacher, director of the city's water and waste department speaks Thursday at a press conference announcing the boil-water advisory had been lifted.

“The province has advised us that for the second day in a row, the water has tested just fine.”

Winnipeg residents were advised to boil their water on Tuesday, after 15 per cent of the city’s water samples tested positive for coliform bacteria.

‎Those results are now believed to be false positives. Winnipeg’s water and waste department is now launching an investigation into how those erroneous samples were collected and tested, director Diane Sacher said at city hall.

There is no indication human error was to blame, she said.

“We need to do an investigation,” Sacher said. “We’re only in Hour One.”

The precautionary boil-water advisory was issued by the province at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, initially only for eastern Winnipeg, after six of 39 city water samples collected Monday tested positive for coliform bacteria, which are seen as indicators of fecal contamination.

Samples collected on Tuesday and Wednesday both came back clean. As a result, the province lifted the boil-water advisory at 2:51 p.m. Thursday.

The mayor thanked Winnipeggers for their co-operation during the precautionary advisory and also thanked city staff. Bowman could not estimate the cost of the boil-water advisory to the city itself.

There are no compensation plans in place for businesses or non-profit institutions inconvenienced by the order, which was issued as a public-health precaution.