Water found undrinkable at new hospital in Battlefords

Province orders probe into source of high levels of lead and copper

The provincial government plans to have an audit conducted at the Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford after testing showed higher than acceptable levels of lead or copper were present in the facility’s drinking water, which has rendered it undrinkable.

At a media scrum in Regina on Friday, Mike Carr, deputy minister of Central Services, said the ministry has informed partners in the Saskatchewan Hospital project of its plans. A full investigation is already underway, and testing is ongoing to confirm the cause of variability in the test results.

This investigation is expected to continue for “a number of days,” Carr said.

“Our concern is we want the assurance that the facility is operating as it was designed and as it should. It’s not unusual to find circumstances where you’re commissioning a new building, especially a building as large and as sophisticated as this one, to find that you’ve got some challenges through commissioning and into operation.”

Carr pointed to concerns about the hospital’s roof and now the quality of its drinking water. The government will have an independent, third party conduct the audit, he said.

“Our hope is that audit will provide us as the owner with a greater degree of certainty as to where things are at the facility.”

The 188-psychiatric bed hospital, which opened in March, has 96 beds for correctional inmates with mental health issues. It’s operated by Snc-lavalin and was built by Graham Construction to replace the century-old former building. The project was a public-private partnership (P3) and opened several months behind schedule.

Shortly after the opening, the new building’s roof started to leak, triggering an investigation which found that insulation and vapour barriers in several modular panels in the roofing had shrunk. The entire roof was ordered to be replaced in May.

The ministry learned there were questions about water quality at the hospital on Oct. 17, worked with the Ministry of Health and Saskatchewan Health Authority and its P3 partners — a consortium of private-sector businesses known as Access Prairies Partnership — to start a round of testing, which showed variability in the results, Carr said.

The ministry has said there’s no immediate health risk and hasn’t issued a health advisory. Carr said the ministry believes the problem originates inside the facility itself, since the water entering from the City of North Battleford source has been proven clean. He expects the results will be “clarified” throughout next week, he said.

At a media scrum in Saskatoon, held shortly before Carr met with media in Regina, the Opposition NDP called on the province to order the audit.

“It’s a brand-new facility and it needs a new roof, there are a string of issues that we’ve heard about and they just kind of keep coming in,” Opposition health critic Vicki Mowat said at a scrum in Saskatoon.

“It’s really disappointing for folks who were depending on this

It’s completely inexcusable for a new facility to be going through these issues. OPPOSITION HEALTH CRITIC VICKI MOWAT

facility in the community for so long. And when we talk about people having to be displaced, patients having to be moved around to fix these issues, it’s completely inexcusable for a new facility to be going through these issues,” she said.

Opposition NDP Leader Ryan Meili held up a sign described as one posted at the hospital.

“It’s absolutely astounding to think of a hospital where patients can’t drink the water, where it’s not clean and safe. That’s got to be distressing, seeing signs like this on the walls in the hospital where people are already struggling with mental illness,” he said.

“What does this do to their feeling of safety in a facility like this? It’s very disturbing.”

Meili said he hopes the audit will determine whether there have been other safety concerns or problems with construction to date, and what is happening from a cost standpoint.

“This is a P3 project; a great deal of that contract is under wraps, they don’t share what the details are. We really don’t know how much this is costing the Saskatchewan people to get a product that is nowhere near what we were expecting.”

Carr defended the ministry’s use of a P3 model.

“I think that this experience demonstrates the value of the P3 model, because it does demonstrate who has the liability for correcting deficiencies that have been identified. Certainly I think I would argue, in fact, that the province has been the beneficiary of identifying these concerns with the building and having the builder fully own that requirement,” he said.

Graham Construction did not respond to a request for comment.