Quesnel’s Director of Infrastructure and Capital Works says water treatment options to deal with manganese likely won’t be put in front of City Council until the fall.
Chris Cobin provided an update at Tuesday night’s ZOOM Council meeting…
“Over the winter and spring we collected all of our data. There is quite a lot to go through by our consultants Urban Systems, and I expect to have that information, hope that they work on the report and the update over the summer, and having something by early fall.”
Cobin was also asked by City Councillor Ron Paull if there has been any pushback by the BC Water and Waste Management Association for the federal government to take another look at its new guideline numbers for manganese…
“This was a long time coming.  There were a number of years where the BC Water and Waste Association was aware that the guidelines may change.  What we didn’t know was what the number would be.  There are different numbers out there, different countries have different manganese acceptable levels, the U.S., the World Health Organization, Australia, so there wasn’t any pushback per say, it is a federal guideline.”
Cobin says the last time it was reviewed was in the 1980’s.
Some on Council have expressed concerns about the prospect of using chlorination, something Quesnel currently doesn’t have in its water, although they were told that other options were being examined.
Health Canada came out with new guidelines for manganese back in May of last year, which is the reason Quesnel and many other communities are now scrambling to make changes.