Alberta Health Services announced Wednesday that it has lifted the water quality advisory issued Jan. 19 for the water of Big Lake in the Edmonton area.
The lake is connected to the Sturgeon River northwest of Edmonton and west of St. Albert, bordering Parkland and Sturgeon County.
AHS issued the advisory five months ago because sewage run-off entered the lake and its shoreline after a pipeline carrying wastewater ruptured near a subdivision in Parkland County.
A valve on an Alberta Capital Region Wastewater Commission (ACRWC) pipeline failed at the end of December 2022, causing the pipe to rupture below ground in a concrete chamber. Wastewater then came to the surface and entered the lake near the Lakeshore Estates subdivision.
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Enough fecal bacteria entered the lake to make people and pets sick, as well as make eating fish from the lake unsafe.
Now, AHS says the water quality, including fecal bacteria levels, has returned to an acceptable level and the health risk is low for usage of the lake for recreational purposes.
As always, people are reminded to never drink or cook with untreated water directly from any lake or reservoir, at any time.
The ACRWC transmission system is a network of sewer lines from 13 municipalities in the Edmonton region.
The commission says the pipeline system conveys wastewater to a treatment plant from municipalities in the west, north and east sections of the region.
In the south, it also carries wastewater from the city and county of Leduc and Beaumont into the City of Edmonton’s system for treatment.
In exchange, the ACRWC plant looks after wastewater from Clareview and the Clover Bar Industrial Area.
Wastewater in the ACRWC network is processed at the plant near the northeast edge of Edmonton in Strathcona County, where cleaned water is released back into the North Saskatchewan River.
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