It's okay to drink Montreal tap water again, as the city lifted the boil water advisory in a press conference at 10 p.m. Thursday.
Mayor Michael Applebaum, who had been absent from his duties for several days while mourning the death of his brother, returned to duty late Thursday to explain that investigations are ongoing to determine what exactly caused the 36-hour boil water advisory
But he reassured the public that tests have shown that the water is safe to drink.
"Bacteriological analyses of the Montreal waterworks and plants confirm that the water is of good quality and meets all regulatory requirements," says the mayor in a press release issued along with the press conference.
Applebaum said that the problem was likely caused when the Atwater water treatment plant was drained lower than it should have.
The conference was otherwise short on technical details but the mayor repeatedly promised that a thorough investigation would be undertaken to determine what caused the issue.
Chantal Morissette, the director of the Water department of the city of Montreal had said earlier in the day that the city would only get test results and the analysis very late in the day so it was likely Montrealers "will be going to bed" without knowing if the water is safe.
"The new information is that we will have the boil order until late tonight. I know it's been 24 hours so far but we had to take a lot of samples yesterday... and we have to wait until we have all the results," said Morissette earlier Thursday.
The entire city of Montreal was under a boil water advisory with the exception of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, l'Île-Bizard-Sainte-Geneviève, Montréal-Nord, Ahuntsic-Cartierville and the Rivière-des-Prairies neighbourhood.Water in the towns of Mount Royal, Hampstead, Westmount, Cote Saint-Luc, Montreal East, Montreal West and the off-island town of Charlemagne is also affected.
Montrealers were informed that they should boil their water for one minute before drinking, brushing teeth, or using it for cooking or washing food.
So far the city does not know what, if anything, made it into the drinking water supply except for mud.
"We have no indication that any citizens were affected by drinking the water that circulated," said Christian Dubois, the municipal public-safety director.
"But we're not taking any risks."
Problem began during maintenance work
The problem originated at the Atwater filtration plant -- the largest in the province.
Officials are not saying if the unprecedented boil-water advisory was caused by human error, but as part of ongoing renovation work, water levels in a reservoir dipped to an unusually low level on Tuesday and stirred up sediment .
Workers refilled the the reservoir, but before dawn on Wednesday morning residents of St. Henri and Verdun soon complained about brown, water coming out of their taps.
"When it first started running it was a kind of muddy brown colour," said Kelly Albert.
"What I did basically is run out right away and bought bottled water. because the water was quite cloudy... and I didn't want to take a chance."
Alerted to the problem the city then issued its advisory, first for those boroughs, then repeatedly expanding it throughout the day as the full extent of the problem became known.
Run on water
As the news spread Wednesday people began stocking up on water -- and were not always peaceful about it. There were reports of struggles inside several stores as shelves emptied.
"I'm a little worried because were fighting for water inside at Wal-mart," said one man.
Many grocery stores throughout the city soon ran out of bottled water, no matter the size of the container.
Rob Lurie spoke to daycare workers who counted themselves lucky to find water before it disappeared.
"We need to provide water for the children especially since we don't know how long this is going to last," they said.
That was rectified by Thursday, with plenty of pallets full of water arriving overnight and shoppers having no difficulty stocking up.
Coffee shops also stopped selling their main product: Starbucks staff members said that water is not boiled before being brewed.
Meanwhile at schools and hospitals implemented emergency measures to prevent illness.
Staff members at Pierre de Coubertin in St. Leonard taped off water fountains, and handed out water bottles to students. The school keeps bottled water on hand, just in case of emergency.
"We always take that into consideration. because we never know what can happen so we always make sure we have extra water on hand," said Vice Principal Sonia Marotta.
Hospitals and seniors' residences throughout the city have blocked off water fountains, started handing bottled water to residents, and begun cooking with bottled water.
Christine Touchette of the CSSS Cavendish said all the protocols were worked out long in advance.
"It means that we have on all floors, where we provide care, that we get reorganized," said Touchette.
"We tell everyone that they shouldn't drink water from the tap."
Hospitals were also forced to take measures to deal with the unusual situation.
“Obviously it's a huge amount of work to ensure that everyone has water to ensure that the medical procedures we use are safe so there's a lot of added work, but everything's been running smooth and on time,” said Dr. Lucie Opatrny of St. Mary’s Hospital.
Water expert offers analysis
The Atwater plant currently treats water with only chlorine but after renovations, it will be considered state-of-the-art, as it will also treat water with ozone and UV.
Professor Ronald Gher, an expert in water treatment at McGill University said that he was initially taken aback by the news.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” he said. “I think most people were surprised but then when I heard what had caused it, it made sense."
The advisory was the result of stricter regulations, which became mandatory after the Walkerton water tragedy of 2001. According to the new, stricter rules, an advisory is issued when turbidity levels – a measure for fine particles that scatter light- rise to a level of .3.
The presence of turbidity usually indicates the possible presence of other micro organisms, except that in this case the turbidity was only noted in water that had already been treated.
“There’s absolutely no reason to be scared,” said Gher. “I agree that the city did the right thing. They’re obliged to do that, it’s a precautionary measure, you don’t need to go beyond that, you don’t have to worry about washing sheets or dishes and the chances of getting sick from drinking the water before the issue was raised is just about zero,” said Gher.
The wait is necessary, as it takes a full day to test the water.
“Bacteria are so small, that the only way that we can test for them, is to culture them and that takes 24 hours," he said.
