B.C. Interior communities face millions in water upgrades, including former home of the 'world's best water'

Happily retired and living in the small east Kootenay village of Canal Flats, Gayle Lake never expected to become an expert in municipal water systems.

"Our water quality has always been amazing," she said, praising the clean but untreated well water flowing from the taps. 

"I've lived in the community for over 40 years, and I don't actually remember any time that we've had a boil water advisory. There's never been a problem with the quality or quantity of water that we have."

Lake is now the volunteer chair of Canal Flat's new Water Protection and Advisory Committee, tasked with figuring out a way to implement Interior Health orders to upgrade and disinfect the water system, a project that could cost the small village of some 800 residents millions of dollars. 

On Monday, March 17, her committee will hold a contentious town hall meeting to explain to residents that while their water is tested and fine, they need to meet new provincial guidelines to mitigate the risk of water contamination.

Lake has yet to convince the mayor who appointed her to the job.

"We're still not over it ... We were kind of taken aback," Mark Dougherty said of the Interior Health letter that warned the village of health orders, even closure of the water system, if improvements weren't made.    

"We didn't feel that our water was an issue.  It's, I think, probably the best water in the valley."

New, tougher, provincial standards and testing came into effect after 2016 legislative changes to B.C.'s Drinking Water Protection Act, particularly concerning tests for Ground Water at Risk of Containing Pathogens (GARP).

Floods, heavy rains, and spillage can potentially contaminate well water with farm waste or chemicals. The deeper the well, the lower the risk from dangerous pathogens like E. coli, giardia, or cryptosporidium.   

"If a well water is used without any form of [disinfectant] treatment, then there is the potential for community outbreaks, and we have seen those," says Courtney Zimmerman, Interior Health's director of environmental public health and licensing, who oversees some 2,000 regulated water systems in the region.   

"The biggest example obviously is places like Walkerton."

In 2000, runoff from farms contaminated the Ontario town's well water.  More than 2,000 people fell ill from E. coli gastroenteritis. Seven residents died, and others were left with chronic illnesses.

As a result of the new standard, Interior Health ordered dozens of communities to hire consultants to perform new GARP tests and reassess the risk of well contamination.