In early August, Natasha St-Aubin turned on her tap at her home in Otter Lake to fill the bathtub for her young daughter, only to see brown water pour out of the faucet. That same day, her load of white laundry came out streaked with reddish brown stains.
And this wasn’t the first time the town water showed this kind of discolouration.
“Residents of Otter Lake have been experiencing these episodes of sediment and discolouration for several years now,” she said, noting she first saw the brown water and sediment coming through her own taps about four years ago.
“They happen without warning, and they are not scheduled. [ . . . ] It’s concerning because what happens to our appliances? Slowly they’re getting affected. Our dishwasher, our laundry machine, our fridges’ water dispensers, it’s all being affected in the long-term as well.”
St-Aubin is not the only Otter Lake resident seeing this sporadic reddish brown tinge to her water. Results from a survey conducted by the Municipality of Otter Lake this summer have revealed just under half of the respondents have experienced some form of water discolouration.
While 52 per cent of the respondents said they do not experience any discolouration, 10 per cent reported experiencing it only after the regular flushing of the lines, and 38 per cent said it also occurred at other random points in time. Of the total respondents, 21 per cent reported experiencing frequent discoloration of their tap water.
“I am concerned. I totally get their concern. Who would appreciate having a shower with [discoloured] water coming out of their faucet?” said Mayor Jennifer Quaile. “All we can do is try to find the cause, do our best to do that, and then find a solution.”
She said the municipality plans to work with the residents who have reported frequent discolouration to better understand what might be causing it, as the homes where it appears frequently are scattered all over town.
“It’s really quite random. [ . . . ] We can’t explain why some people have the issue in town and others not at all. So we’re looking to hone in on the precise cause.”
Quaile said one possible explanation is elevated manganese levels in the water. She said the town had the manganese levels tested and found them to be at 0.035 mg/L. These levels are much lower than Health Canada’s safe drinking water limit of 0.12 mg/L, but higher than the limit of 0.02 mg/L Health Canada recommends to prevent discolouration of water.
The municipality conducts semi-regular flushes of the water lines, which date back to the 1970s, to clear out any manganese residue, but for some residents, the reddish brown water appears outside of these flushes.
“It’s safe to drink, it’s low enough that it’s not going to cause any health concerns, but it is at a level that can be not pleasing aesthetically,” Quaile said. “There’s all kinds of possibilities to explore before we go forward, and we’ll need to get a little more detail from the homes that see it more frequently to expand our evidence.”
She said she’s heard from a good number of residents who have had success with installing water filtration systems at their intake, and suggested this as a possible immediate solution for residents seeing frequent discolouration.
“That to me seems like the simplest solution. It would be worth a try at least,” she said.
St-Aubin said she understands town water problems can be costly, and that fixes can’t happen overnight, but that at this point she’s just hoping for greater transparency from the municipality around how it is addressing the water challenges.
“Right now we just want clear communication from the municipality and accountability, and a plan for what they’re going to do when they find the issue, long-term.”
