The City of North Battleford presented its Drinking Water Quality annual report at its council meeting Monday.
While the report itself is comprehensive, Director of Utilities Stewart Schafer’s remarks to council about it were brief.
“To put it bluntly, our water is safe, and has been safe for the past year and continues to be safe,” said Schafer.
The report itself concluded that the “North Battleford water treatment plants were able to provide potable water that met the WSA guidelines as set out in the Permit to Operate. For the distribution system in the City of North Battleford, chlorine levels exceeded the minimum level outlined by the WSA.”
Mayor Ryan Bater also noted the city holds quarterly meetings with their water committee, a committee which includes members of administration as well as the Water Security Agency.
The next meeting of that committee is slated for Sept. 1 between 12-1 p.m., which would be the last one before the fall municipal election.
On one page of the water report a number of highlights were identified including the following:
364 samples were submitted as part of the routine monitoring of the distribution system. None of the routine samples tested positive for total coliforms. All routine samples, with exception of the waste water treatment plant (sample site at the end of a dead-end watermain - the Water Security Agency was notified), were within recommended chlorine residual guidelines set by the WSA.
The annual average for samples submitted for Trihalomethanes and Haloacetic Acids was below the Maximum Acceptable Concentration.
The online turbidity analyzers for Water Treatment Plant #1 ranged from 0. 04 NTU to 0. 14 NTU, meeting the guideline of less than 1.0 NTU for 95% of readings.
Turpidity for F. E. Holliday Treatment Plant filters ranged from 0.04 to 3.48 NTU for Filter #1, 0.02 to 2.93 NTU for Filter #2, 0.02 to 0.15 NTU for Filter #3, and 0.02 to 0.13 NTU for Filter #4. According to the report, readings for Filters #1 and #2 were above the NTU guidelines for treated surface water, and plant operators believe these high numbers were from accumulated sediment in the filter effluent pipeline during downtimes. The high NTU resulted in an immediate shutdown of the filters. Filters #3 and #4 were below the NTU guidelines of less than 0.3 NTU for 95% of readings.
Monthly free chlorine readings were above the minimum guideline of 0. 2 mg/L entering the distribution system. The monthly readings ranged from 0.43 mg/L to 2.22 mg/L at Water Treatment Plant #1 and 0.52 mg/L to 3.50 mg/L at F.E. Holliday Treatment Plant.
The highest iron reading was 0. 17 mg/L at WTP #1 which was below the aesthetic guidelines of 0.3 mg/L.
The highest manganese reading was 0. 05 mg/L at WTP #1 which meets the aesthetic guidelines of 0.05 mg/L.
Water Treatment Plant #1 produced 1. 6 million m3 (cubic meters) of water while the F.E. Holliday Treatment Plant produced 0.07 million m3. Combined, the Water Treatment Plants produced just over 1.67 million m3 of water.
