Nahanni Butte’s drinking water contains high levels of manganese and should be avoided by young children or pregnant women, the NWT’s chief environmental health officer said on Tuesday.
Manganese is an element that occurs in many types of food and inside the human body, but overexposure for long periods of time “can cause neurological effects in young children,” chief environmental health officer Chirag Rohit’s advisory stated.
“Infants, children under five and pregnant women should not drink the community’s tap water,” he told Nahanni Butte residents.
“Adults and older children are at a lower risk but should still take precautions.”
The GNWT said “a failure” in Nahanni Butte’s old water treatment process was responsible for the issue, adding that a new filtration system had been installed and manganese levels are expected to drop in the months ahead.
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However, it wasn’t clear if manganese concentrations had only just reached levels high enough to merit an advisory, or if they had been that way for some time.
“The chief environmental health officer, along with the community government, will continue to monitor the situation,” the advisory concluded.
Boiling water won’t make the manganese issue go away. Instead, the chief environmental health officer recommended that infants, children under five and pregnant women use bottled water for drinking, preparing baby formula, cooking and drinking.
“Everyone can use tap water for showering, bathing, and washing, but infants and children under five should avoid swallowing the water,” the advisory added.
Water treated using reverse osmosis, ion exchange, water softeners or oxidizing filters is safe, but Brita-style drinking water filters with activated carbon “will not remove manganese safely,” the advisory noted.
