North Battleford’s tainted water will be the focus of a judicial inquiry announced this week by Saskatchewan premier Lorne Calvert.
High winds forced Calvert to travel by car May 7 instead of plane to North Battleford, where he was expected to meet with its city council.
Calvert said the province’s chief justice would appoint a judge by week’s end for the inquiry, expected to be full, open and transparent and focused on North Battleford. Its broad terms of reference would also examine processes in place across the province.
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“We will want to look at all of those who have been involved at the provincial level, municipal level, the district level with the goal of finding out what has happened but equally with the goal of trying to be certain that this will not happen again in future,” said Calvert.
He expressed “a high confidence” in the water quality of Saskatchewan communities.
Water problems surfaced in North Battleford following maintenance of the water treatment system filter March 20.
North Battleford residents were first advised to boil their water April 25. A handful of local businesses have since provided bottled water to residents.
The city extracts its water from the North Saskatchewan River, a few kilometres downstream from its sewage treatment plant.
David Butler-Jones, Saskatchewan’s chief medical officer, said May 7 there are 66 confirmed cases of cryptosporidium contamination, and probably hundreds of others.
He said symptoms include diarrhea, a mild fever, vomiting and cramps.
It typically affects about 50 people annually, and is usually scattered around the province. “This is the first time we’ve seen an outbreak like this,” he said.
Butler-Jones advised farmers and rural residents to test their wells regularly; at least once a year for properly sealed, deep wells and more often for all others.
Good farming practices are the best defence against parasites and pathogens, he said.
“The more intensive the livestock activity, the more important it is to have other things in place,” he said, noting the need for large hog barns to have adequate sewage treatment as one example.
“It’s like a small municipality in terms of the impact so they have to have appropriate treatment.”
Alvin Gajadhar, of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s animal parasitology lab, said there has been no link established between livestock and the cryptosporidium parasite, which can find hosts in most warm-blooded creatures.
“Because the parasite has broad ranged hosts, it could be from humans, cattle, a rodent or any other animal,” he said.
Gajadhar noted water-borne outbreaks in other countries have been traced to human sewage contamination. Water is contaminated when feces containing the parasite are deposited or flushed into water. The parasites are pathogens that can be eliminated in healthy bodies within four weeks. They can be much more serious for those with weakened immune systems such as those affected by AIDS or cancer.
Gajadhar was unsure how to rid the water system of the parasite, citing filters and long-term freezing as possible remedies.
“It will eventually die,” he said. “It won’t stay there forever.”
