Tainted Water warning leaves Vancouver high and dry

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*
Perilous Times and Global Warming

Tainted Water warning leaves Vancouver high and dry*

17 Nov 2006 20:04:21 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov 17 (Reuters) - More than two million
residents on Canada's Pacific coast puzzled on Friday over a warning
they might normally associate with the Third World: don't drink the water.

Health officials issued a boil-water advisory for the Vancouver-area
after a storm stirred up silt in the region's reservoirs and increased
the risk of bacteria-borne disease.

No illnesses have been reported -- and officials said no bacteria had
actually been found -- but residents were told not to use water for
drinking, brushing teeth or washing fruit and vegetables unless it had
been boiled first.

The advisory issued on Thursday quickly emptied store shelves of bottled
water and forced restaurants and coffee shops in Canada's third largest
city to turn away customers.

"Don't bother, they don't have any coffee," said Sara, a panhandler
outside a downtown Tim Hortons Inc. <THI.TO> restaurant, as she directed
confused commuters to the few places where they could get their morning
caffeine fix.

"This is all really stupid," she added.

Across the street in a normally busy Starbucks Corp. <SBUX.O> shop, the
staff stood around with nothing to do.

The boil-water advisory was issued after heavy rains on Wednesday caused
mudslides in the mountains that surround Vancouver, which serve as its
source of water supply, dumping silt into reservoirs already churned up
by winds gusting at more than 100 km/h (62 mph).

Turbidity levels in the reservoirs jumped to unprecedented levels, and
health officials warned the silt could carry high levels of bacteria,
and make the chorine used to treat the water less effective.

"It's the worst we've ever seen it," Johnny Carline, water commissioner
for the Greater Vancouver Regional District told CBC television.

The district, which supplies about a billion litres (265 million U.S.
gallons) of water per day, is building a new filtration system for its
major reservoirs but the facility is not scheduled to be completed until
2007.

The initial boil-water advisory covered about 2.15 million people but
officials were about to lift the warning for several communities east of
Vancouver by midday on Friday.

It was hoped turbidity levels would return to acceptable levels for the
entire area by the end of the weekend, although weather forecasters have
warned that another storm was scheduled to hit the region on Sunday.