Amanda Hieta stapled an upcoming garage sale sign with a smile in Lake Cowichan Friday.
The young mom welcomed the sign of spring, after a winter wracked with boil water orders that have tested everyone’s patience.
“Makes it hard just to do anything,” said Amanda Hieta.
“Basically washing anything you want to make sure that your child’s safe and it’s hard when you can’t use the water all the time.”
The Mayor of Lake Cowichan is eager to see the $7-million dollar water treatment plant that is 13-months overdue, finally up and running.
“We’ve had boil waters for the last few years and you know we’re getting tired of it,” Mayor Rod Peters said.
“We’ve got millions of dollars invested in this water treatment plant and we can’t use it.”
The latest boil water advisory for Lake Cowichan has been lifted and the community’s been told the plant should now be completed by the end of March.
It’s a deadline shared with the Town of Ladysmith’s new water treatment plant.
That community is now under its own boil water advisory, after drinking water tests Thursday, March 5 showed higher turbidity in town water, or cloudiness than is acceptable under new Island Health Standards.
“They’re still pretty low,” said Town of Ladysmith CAO Guillermo Ferrero.
“The acceptable levels are low and we’re working with them [levels] to get it back to where they need to be.”
An investigation is still underway to determine what led to the higher turbidity in the town’s drinking water.
Until suitable levels are reached, residents and businesses are being urged to boil water for one minute, then cool before consuming.
Once the new and improved water treatment plants in Lake Cowichan and Ladysmith are complete, both communities expect boil water orders to be a thing of the past.
Skye Ryan
