Redcliff businesses seeing added cost during boil water advisory

Adjustments have been made at Red Hat Co-operative Limited, which produce packages.

Gillian Digman, chief operating officer, said the vegetables they get in from producers are clean, not requiring an additional wash, but the industry is governed by strict food safety policies and they regularly wash hands and wear gloves.

Without the ease of being able to washing their hands, they have taken an additional step.

“We have added a sanitizer to that now just to ensure. We’ve consulted with our food safety expert, and he recommended that,” Digman said.

“We just add in a rinse-free, food-safe sanitizer just as a precaution.”

Having proper water supply and getting their reserve level back up is most important at Sky Green House.

Manager Gurmeet Kumer said they had plants starting to go bad when water was shut off temporarily on Sunday.

“If we are not feeding good to plants, there is too much things happening with plants,” Kumer said.

“I saw here in my greenhouse, there are some tomatoes are going to blackish, like the head is blackish,” he added.

It was very hard to manage. Now we have also no any storage water.”

Adding that they normally heat water on site to help lower the pH level.

“We are using here three boilers, big ones, for only just heat the water, set the temperature, all things,” Kumer said.

“If Redcliff can help somehow to the greenhouses, then it will be more helpful. So it will be somehow cheapest and good for us.”

— Azhar Iqbal, Owner/Operator of A-1 Pizza Redcliff says it’s added work for them to be able to continue to operate.

“It’s hard for us to boil the water and then put it in the cooler or make it cool, cold to mix the dough or the sauce. For that reason, we buy the water, spring water from next door,” Iqbal said.

“We also need to boil the water and wash the dishes. It is costing us a little extra money, and we are also doing some extra work.”

Digman adds they need to make sure their staff stays hydrated, with boiling and cooling water not an option for this.

“One hundred and sixty team members getting fresh water to drink. We have water fountains that are connected to the main supply, so obviously we’ve had to bring in some bottled water fountains to ensure that our team members have clean, safe water to drink,” Digman said.

The higher operating costs with water being brought in to businesses, and not being able to utilize regular practices has caused issues.

Owners are hoping to see an end to the boil water advisory in Redcliff, with the towns news release on Monday anticipating that could happen Thursday.

by Jesse Gill

Redcliff businesses seeing added cost during boil water advisory

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