Medicine Hat's Water Treatment Plant (CHAT News file photo)

By Brendan Miller

Medicine Hat will test drinking water for asbestos fibres

Apr 10, 2023 | 4:50 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The city says it’s taking action to address concerns about what may be in our water supply.

An investigative piece by CTV’s W5 last month shed light on how fibres from aging asbestos-cement pipes could be entering municipal water supplies.

In response to the piece, the city posted an information page about asbestos and why municipalities currently don’t test for it in the water.

Late last week, after receiving feedback from residents, city staff and members of council, the city decided to begin testing for asbestos fibres at six locations around Medicine Hat to get a broad sample of what is or isn’t in our drinking water.

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The testing will happen at locations the city regularly uses to test our drinking water for issues like chlorine levels or the presence of E. coli.

“We want to ensure that at various points throughout the city that we are getting an accurate and reflective sample across the city,” says Patrick Bohan, director of city assets energy and infrastructure.

Asbestos-cement piping was installed in Medicine Hat between the 1960s and 1980s and accounts for roughly 30 per cent of pipes that deliver water to homes, or roughly 134 kilometres of pipeline.

Currently, Health Canada does not require municipalities to test drinking water for asbestos fibres nor do they have any standards for acceptable levels in drinking water.

The city will use the US Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation of fewer than 7 million particles of asbestos fibres per litre of water for safe consumption.

“Community confidence in our water supply is super critical to us. We have about 65 people in our department that strictly work on water quality and they do everything from testing to ensuring that the water is of the best quality,” says Bohan.

Councillors have been hearing concerns from residents who want to know if the city’s drinking water is safe. Coun. Alison Van Dyke says the city is taking the issue seriously by being one of the only municipalities to begin testing our drinking water.

“I think it will be reassuring to people. We don’t really have anything to compare to because like I said I don’t think any other municipalities are doing this kind of testing right now. It’s not required and there’s no place within Canada that does it so I think it will be informative to other communities as well because we are not the only ones who have asbestos-cement piping,” says Van Dyke.

In Canada, there isn’t anywhere to test water for Asbestos fibres so the city will ship our water samples to Ohio for testing.

Once the test results are in, the results will be made available to the public. At that time the city will evaluate whether or not they will continue testing the water for asbestos. Testing could take several weeks to complete.

Still, the city is set on bringing back its outdoor water bottle-filling stations this summer.

Ten water bottle-filling stations will be on fire hydrates in high-use locations throughout the community.

The locations have not been finalized but the city is looking to change some of the locations from last year. Julian Branch, a former Saskatchewan legislative reporter who has been studying asbestos in the water extensively told chatnewstoday that he had confirmed one of the locations used last year for potable water was asbestos-cement pipe.

The water coming from the fire hydrants is the same treated water that is delivered to homes and businesses throughout Medicine Hat.