Buffalo Air Express says it is offering cases of bottled water “at cost” to help South Slave residents deal with a drinking-water advisory issued this week.
Earlier this week, the NWT’s chief environmental health officer told residents in Hay River, Kátł’odeeche First Nation, Enterprise and Kakisa to take precautions with drinking water because of high levels of disinfection byproducts known as trihalomethanes – or THMs – in the communities’ drinking water.
Elevated levels of THMs occur when chlorine used to disinfect water reacts with naturally occurring organic material in lakewater.
The level of that organic material is understood to have increased over time and Hay River’s decades-old water treatment plant – which the town hopes to replace this decade – is not coping. THM levels have now moved above Health Canada’s guideline limit.
On Thursday morning, Buffalo Airways general manager Mikey McBryan said Buffalo Air Express has brought in pallets of bottled water from Edmonton’s CostCo and is selling them at their cost price of $11 per case, which he said amounted to 27.5 cents per bottle.
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The pallets are located at 23 Industrial Drive.
A public meeting about the advisory, the cause of the issue and work happening to solve the problem takes place in Hay River on Thursday evening. Work to improve the water treatment process and bring down THM levels is under way.
How long the advisory will remain in place isn’t clear. Residents have been told to use filtered or bottled water for food preparation and open windows or run an exhaust fan when using tap water for washing dishes, alongside other precautions.
Exposure to high levels of THMs is associated with an increased risk of cancer, but only over a period of many decades, officials at the NWT government have said.
