Second boil order in effect for Sackville

Editor's note: Effective 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, the Town of Sackville has lifted its boil water order, and residents are no longer required to boil their water before consuming.





SACKVILLE, N.B. - Sackville residents were hit with another boil order Monday less than 48 hours after learning they could safely drink their water again on the heels of last weeks boil order.

This time, the cause was a malfunction of the towns chlorination system at the water treatment plant. But public works director George Woodburn says he is optimistic the boil order could be lifted by this afternoon (Wednesday).

It (the chlorinator) has since been repaired. In fact, it was repaired by 11 oclock this morning, said Woodburn, who was on his way to Moncton with water samples on Monday afternoon.

So its hopeful over time that the chlorine levels will get back up again and well be able to get off the boil water order.

When the broken chlorinator was discovered by maintenance workers early Monday morning, public works crews started taking water samples from various test sites throughout town. The boil order was enacted after one of the samples tested negative for the presence of chlorine.

So at that point in time, we made the decision to declare the boil water order and then advised the Department of Environment, said Woodburn.

He noted this measure is simply a precaution to ensure the water hasnt been contaminated by bacteria from the pipes.

He said samples will be submitted to the Department of Environment for testing and the boil order could be lifted by Wednesday afternoon at the earliest.

It will be the same situation as the last time; if we get two clear samples, then the Department of Environment would be able to lift the boil order, he said.

Woodburn admitted he is unsure of when the chlorinator broke down over the weekend because the auto-dialer, a device that alerts town staff when there is a malfunction at the water treatment plant, was also not working.

Its under investigation right now to determine what happened. Its been remedied now but were reviewing it with Aliant as to exactly what happened so we can figure out why it went wrong and then take the appropriate steps to make sure that it wont happen again.

Although residents can still use town water for showering, they are being advised to bring their water to a one-minute rolling boil before consuming.

Meanwhile, another boil advisory, which was issued last Thursday afternoon in the town of Sackville following a downtown water main break the night before, was lifted on Saturday afternoon.

The water main break on Bridge Street, just up from Copp Avenue, Wednesday evening lead to a huge release of water from the system.

It was a large break, along the length of the pipe, about six feet long so quite a lot of water was released. And as a result of that, it stirred up the towns drinking water system, explained Woodburn last Friday.

With that release of water came the scouring of the buildup in some of our pipes and so it created dirty water throughout a good part of the town.

He said Department of Environment officials were advised of the break on Thursday and conducted tests and analysis of the turbidity a term for the amount of particulate matter in the water.

And they felt that, based on the results that we had and the results they had, that they would institute a boil order.

He said by Friday the water was already starting to clear up and the public works staff continued to send water samples to the Department of Environment for analysis throughout the weekend.

Woodburn said because this particular pipe is at the bottom end of the towns water system, the entire town was affected by the water main break.

When you have a break like that, when the waters leaving through the break, its coming from all over town particularly a large break like that.