Boil water advisory ended for Prince Rupert — but it may have been all for nothing

It’s been three months, and residents in Prince Rupert no longer have to boil their water.

A boil water advisory began in December when tests showed too much Cryptosporidium in the water, but Northern Health says the results were likely a false positive.

It took the city and Northern Health having to send samples to a different lab in Alberta to notice there were no problems.

But for Amarjit Sandhu, an employee at Prince Rupert’s Rodhos Pizza, it doesn’t matter if the results were false — boiling water has been a pain to business.

“We need water for rice, we need water for salad, we need it for this and that. It takes a very long (time); we had a very hard time,” Sandhu said.

Brain went on to call the situation a learning experience.

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“This incident has helped both us at the city and Northern Health better understand potential risk from protozoa and has improved our standard for testing and monitoring water quality going ahead,” the mayor added.

The tap water is now safe to drink, but that hasn’t changed Sandhu’s opinion.

“No, I don’t trust the city water,” Sandhu said.

In January, the city reduced the boil water notice to a water quality advisory.

The city has released an after-incident report to detail its findings.

City officials also say that moving forward, they are awaiting notification about a grant application to complete a water treatment project.

If successful in their application, officials say they will be developing a value engineering program to ensure that water treatment is implemented as efficiently and safely as possible.