Drinking water advisory lifted

A drinking water advisory issued by Medical Officer of Health Dr. Catherine Whiting has been lifted.

The advisory affected about 500 people in the Littledown Lane-Carmichael Road area, plus Airport Road east of Carmichael, including Jack Garland Airport, CFB North Bay above-ground operations, and the Canadore College aviation campus.

Dr. Whiting said the advisory, issued Wednesday, was lifted after the water system in the affected area was flushed and laboratory results for bacteria or contamination came back negative.

City engineer John Simmonds said the drop in water pressure which led to the advisory is still under investigation, although he believes it to be computer-related.

"We had a communication line failure between the Ellendale reservoir and the CFB reservoir," Simmonds said.

"What happened is that alarms that would have told us we had a communication problem did not kick in and we didn't know there was a problem until people started calling in and telling us they didn't have any water."

Residential users of the municipal supply are advised to run each of their cold taps for one minute. Commercial and institutional users whould run all cold water taps for two minutes.

Screens should be removed from taps, rinsed and replaced to remove sediment.

These steps, as well as normal water use, will be sufficient to enusre that properly chlorinated water is available at the tap.

The health unit reports no increased incidents of gastrointestinal-like illness during the advisory from hospital emergency rooms, walk-in clinics, or Telehealth.