Caleb Nickerson
PORTAGE DU FORT
Oct. 18, 2017
The current mayor of Portage du Fort is seeking re-election and hopes to keep serving her community as she has done for nearly a decade.
Lynne Cameron has been a resident of Portage du Fort for the past 46 years. She has been mayor for the past eight of those and a councillor for 13.
When asked what the biggest issue facing her community was, she didn’t hesitate: the water.

Portage du Fort residents have been under a boil-water advisory since September due to a malfunction with the computer that operates their filtration plant.
“It’s common knowledge that we’ve had trouble with our filtration. We’ve got some solutions so hopefully everything will be smooth from here on in,” Cameron said. “It’s the big issue in town. People pay dearly for a service that is not there all the time.”
Boil-water advisories have been a recurring problem in the community since it switched to a new treatment plant at the behest of the provincial government, following the Walkerton tragedy in 2000.
“When I came on council it was just coming to pass that we had to have a filtration plant,” she explained.
“There’s a lot of years that go into planning that and we are just like the other municipalities where there was no choice, we just had to do it. It was a great expense to the municipality,” she continued.
The new plant came online in 2013, which cost $2.9 million, with the town’s taxpayers required to repay $590,000 over 20 years. Cameron said that when the new facility started up, the water use in the community was too much for it to handle and they had to switch back to the old system, prompting a boil-water advisory.
“It’s very frustrating for council and the people and I count myself among the people because it affects me too,” she added.
Despite these challenges, Cameron said she is dedicated to resolving the issues through the relevant government agencies.
She also said that complying with the new province-wide regulations regarding composting would be a priority if re-elected.