Canada’s warmest welcome has unwanted visitor

The town that boasts of offering Canada’s warmest welcome is getting set to host an unwanted visitor: brown water in residential taps.

Public works staff in Osoyoos were planning Tuesday to bring water well No. 5 online in advance of dryer summer months.

“The town avoids using this well during the offseason as the manganese contents are higher. Unfortunately, as demand grows during the warmer months, we cannot avoid using all our well-pumping capacity to keep up with demand. This will most likely cause a surge in brown water issues around town as the well becomes operational. Please bear with us as we transition our water distribution system to summer operations,” explained the town in a press release.

“We anticipate three to four days of ‘brown water’ throughout the distribution system but hope to minimize the impact on our water customers by completing some esthetic flushing as we bring this source online.”

According to the town, the Osoyoos Aquifer is high in natural manganese content that regularly exceeds acceptable levels in three of six wells. Chlorine added to the water to make it safe to drink also oxidizes the manganese, creating the brown colour.

Daily demand on the town’s water system varies from 2,000 cubic metres per day – roughly equivalent in volume to about one Olympic-sized swimming pool – in the winter to 50,000 in the summer.

Town council is trying to secure funding from senior governments to upgrade the water treatment plant to more effectively handle manganese.