All 2.5K Redcliff households affected by water disruptions

Kilpatrick said that the ball is now in the court of Alberta Health Services and Environment Alberta as they have to give the water a clean bill of health.

Until then, the boil water advisory continues, something that Kilpatrick said could last days.

“Optimistic would be Wednesday, Thursday because they’re going to, there has to be a period of time when everything is good too and they have to take samples all over the grid in Redcliff because it could be anywhere,” Kilpatrick said.

“So they have to keep checking for any bacteria in the system.”

People on social media were quick to criticize the slow announcement and guessed that the cause was related to a water main break early last week.

Kilpatrick said that the cause was a power disruption and that crews worked quickly to get water systems operational again.

Crews had to divert straight power to the computer, start the systems manually and watch as pressure slowly built back up in the distribution center.

Kilpatrick said there are currently no failsafes in place, but once the dust settles, water is delivered and reports are filed, the town will take further action to prevent future events.

“It was actually the system that was supposed to protect us that failed and I don’t know if if we can split that so we have multiple ones not connected to each other but we have to learn from this and we have to try to eliminate it ever happening again because that’s all there is,” Kilpatrick said.

“What happened was a total complete shutdown and that’s really not acceptable.”

The town said it is also dealing with further minor water main breaks, not related to the incident this weekend.

by Adrian St.Onge

All 2.5K Redcliff households affected by water disruptions

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