Boil water advisory for HRM communities lifted

CITYnews halifax / By Dan Ahlstrand

A boil water advisory issued earlier in the week was lifted been lifted Thursday morning.

On Tuesday, Halifax Water issued the advisory after a power failure at the JD Kline (Pockwock) water treatment facility impacted 200,000 people living in Beaver Bank, Middle and Lower Sackville, Upper Hammonds Plains, Hammonds Plains, Bedford, Halifax, Timberlea, Spryfield, Fall River, Waverley, Windsor Junction, and Herring Cove.

Just before 9 a.m. Thursday, the utility said that test results confirm that all drinking water samples have met the requirements established by Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change (NSECC), and it was determined that the Boil Water Advisory could be lifted.

Halifax Water said water will be safe for consumption and use after impacted customers:

• Fridges or other appliances that store water should be flushed for ten minutes.
• Dispose of ice made by an ice maker or ice cube tray during the boil water advisory.

On Wednesday, Halifax Water Spokesperson Jeff Myrick told CityNews that two backup generators at the facility didn’t operate correctly after the outage.

“From the July event, part of that, we were just a few days away from completing an installation of a system that would automatically transition the chlorine redundancy system, and that would have avoided this issue,” she said, adding the expectation is that work will still be completed this week.

On Wednesday, the Nova Scotia Utilities and Review Board(NSUARB) asked Halifax Water to file an investigation report by February 4th into what happened.