Emo, Rainy River water treatment fails standards

Emo, Rainy River, and Dryden have been included on the latest list of communities ordered yesterday to step up operations at their water treatment plants after failing to meet stringent standards for drinking water. And that’s news to the plant managers in both Emo and Rainy River. “They never told me. The MoE were down here but I never heard anything,” Ed Bullied, general manager of Emo’s water treatment plant, said this morning. An employee at the Rainy River plant also said today he had no idea they had failed to meet provincial standards. All three plants were found to have carried out an insufficient number of bacteriological or chemical samples. “We test for different pesticides and we test once every 10 years and we missed two pesticides,” noted Len Swanson, an employee at the water treatment plant in Dryden. They are expecting to correct the problem within the next few weeks. “We’re still waiting for the bottles. You have to have special sample bottles for it,” Swanson said. The three plants were among 12 facilities ordered to take corrective action yesterday because of insufficient sampling. Others were cited for inadequately maintained disinfection equipment, failure to meet minimum treatment guidelines, and for having inappropriately certified operators. A total of 16 plants were found to have operating deficiencies, with the ministry saying further orders are pending. Altogether, 40 communities were included in the latest round of inspections. Fort Frances had been included on a similar list for insufficient sampling earlier in July. The inspections are part of “Operation Clean Water,” the MoE’s action plan to ensure the safety of the province’s drinking water in the wake of the deadly E. coli outbreak in Walkerton in May.