Outlook Town Council has declared a local emergency which will be in effect until December 19th at 3:30 p.m.
In an update on Facebook the statement from town council said the declaration was to enable the community to access support from external agencies and authorities.
Town council will again be handing out 4-litre bottles of water starting at 10 a.m. this morning (Tuesday) from the Jim Kook Recplex. Town staff handed out over 250, 4 litre bottles of water to residents Monday and delivered an additional 72 cases of water to vulnerable residents.
If residents in the town and RM of Rudy got water Monday, they can still get water again Tuesday.
Officials believe the water supply may have been contaminated with an unknown substance added to the drinking supply after a break in at the water treatment facility. The town’s Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Trew says a lid on a hatch had been opened and locks had been broken and tampered with.
A crew is sanitizing the clear well and council is hopeful crews will be able to move to a reservoir early today (Tuesday). As of 9:30 p.m. Monday crews were beginning step two. The next update will be at 8:30 am Tuesday, December 16.
The first phase of this process consists of 4 steps:
1 Remove all of the compromised water from the reservoirs (there is three days’ supply) and put that water into the lagoon for treatment processing
2 sanitize all reservoirs
3 make treated water, enough to flush the whole distribution system
4 flush the distribution system, with DO NOT USE still in effect
