The Manitoba government has announced it will pick up 70 percent of the cost of testing water from private wells.
The subsidy was announced after a committee looking at the safety of the province’s drinking water delivered its recommendations to government.
Wayne Motheral, president of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, said private well tests dried up after the previous provincial government cancelled the subsidy.
But the disaster last summer at Walkerton, Ont., in which people died from drinking contaminated water, prompted a flood of samples to provincial labs from concerned well owners, Motheral added.
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He said the $25 to $30 per sample cost of testing water isn’t onerous, but the AMM strongly believes government should cover the whole cost.
“If there’s any cost at all, there will be that little hesitation about doing (the tests).”
Motheral said the AMM used to be reluctant to recommend that municipal water treatment plant operators take a certification course because it added costs to municipalities.
But since the Walkerton deaths, the AMM has changed its position and now wants operators to be certified.
He said many rural well owners take safe water for granted.
Don Dewar, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, said a lack of education is more of a barrier to safe drinking water than the cost of testing wells.
“I think the most important thing is to remind people to get it done.”
There are 50,000 private wells in the province, along with 2,000 small, semi-public systems serving schools, day cares, community wells and restaurants.
Last year, a random sample of close to 1,000 private wells showed 48 percent had some degree of contamination.
Provincial medical officers have ordered eight communities to boil water before drinking it, and 11 schools to stop using their water for human consumption.
Conservation minister Oscar Lathlin said the government will now turn its attention to the long-term issues affecting drinking water quality.
