Nearly 3,000 people are still without water in the Outlook area.
The community was forced to shut off its water supply on Monday morning after making the discovery that someone had tampered with the water treatment plant.
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Water supply advisories are still in place for Outlook and the RM of Rudy, urging residents to leave their taps off, use alternative sources of water and to keep a close eye out for updates.
Patrick Boyle, a spokesperson for the Water Security Agency, said the provincial organization has been working closely with the town as it works to restore service.
“They had an incident with their water reservoir where a hatch had been pried open, so it was left exposed to the elements, and so in those cases, we look at that in terms of a potential issue with the drinking water supply,” he said.
“What we’re looking at now is the town’s reservoirs being flushed and disinfected and cleaned to make sure there’s no possibility of that contamination,” he said.
After the system has been cleaned out, Boyle said the systems will be turned on to allow for water testing, in order to ensure the supply is safe for residents to drink and use. He said the process can take quite a while.
“It takes a series of days. We look at a number of tests, roughly 48 hours apart, and that’s after getting the issue resolved in the cleaning,” Boyle said.
In an update posted to the community’s Facebook page Tuesday, the town said crews successfully sanitized the clear well and had begun sanitizing reservoirs.
“We expect to start producing treated water at 5 pm. Once the system is on, the water is not safe for human consumption and will smell of bleach and may be cloudy,” the town said.
During this process the town noted pressure will be intermittent and low.
The town said that it is still in the first phase of a process consisting of four steps:
- removing all compromised water from the reservoirs and transferring it into the lagoon for treatment processing;
- sanitizing all reservoirs;
- making enough treated water to flush the whole distribution system; and
- flushing the distribution system, with the water advisory still in effect.
In the meantime, the town said officials will be handing out four-litre jugs of water at the Jim Kook Recplex, with a limit of one per household.
The town reiterated that once the water is turned back on, it does not automatically mean that the water is safe to drink, even if it has been boiled.









