No systemic or local contamination of city’s water in January: study

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This article was published 01/05/2015 (4134 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An independent study of Winnipeg’s water-contamination scare has reaffirmed the city’s assertion the drinking water was always safe.

In January, Winnipeg issued a precautionary boil-water advisory after six city water samples tested positive for coliform bacteria. At the time, city water engineers believed the counts were false positives due to some form of sampling or a laboratory error.

A study by consulting firm AECOM, completed on Thursday, concludes there was no systemic or local contamination of the city’s water supply in January.

The study could not say with any certainty whether the false positives were the result of an error in collecting the water or testing it at a lab.

“The important thing is our water is clean and safe,” Mayor Brian Bowman said at a press conference on city hall, flanked by the city water services manager Tim Shanks, acting director of water and waste Geoff Patton, public works chairwoman Janice Lukes (St. Norbert) and Doug McNeill, the city’s new chief administrative officer.

The report makes recommendations about ways the city could tweak sampling and lab processes to reduce the possibility of false positives. Patton called it the most comprehensive report of its kind undertaken in North America.