Trailer park with perennial water woes gets new treatment plant

A trailer park in the rural south end of the city with a 30-year history of water problems has a new water treatment plant.

For decades, tenants in the Edwards-area Lynnwood Gardens trailer park have complained that the water is murky and undrinkable. Ottawa Public Health warned residents not to drink the water in June 2016 after finding high levels of arsenic.

Osgoode Coun. George Darouze said potassium levels were still a little high on Friday, but he expected this problem can be solved and the water can be used for drinking, washing and cooking.

“At last people can do their laundry without getting brown stains,” said Darouze, who credits the landlord, Killam Apartment REIT, with commissioning a new plant for the trailer park, which has 64 sites.

The new system includes a 30,000-litre cistern to store treated water; additional treatment equipment, and a new building with upgraded power supply, Darouze said. These upgrades and others add up to $400,000 from Killam, he said.

Halifax-based Killam, one of the biggest residential landlords in Canada, acquired the Lynnwood property in 2005, but the water problems go back years before that. In 2000, health officials warned residents of coliform bacteria, including E. coli, in the water.

In March, Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod spoke in the Ontario legislature about the poor water quality at Lynnwood and said Killam needed to be held accountable. A few weeks later MacLeod said Killam appeared hesitant to invest a large sum of money to permanently solve the problem.

“Unless someone can embarrass them, I don’t think anything will happen,” MacLeod said at the time.

But Darouze didn’t think that embarrassing Killam would solve the problem.

“Instead of shaming Killam, I picked up the phone. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and they delivered,” he said.