What Would The City 'Spin Doctor'
Have To Say About This One?
The above is a screen grab taken last year from the front page of the Daily News. You may recall about that time the city was explaining to the Nanaimo taxpayers why they were being asked to approve borrowing another $22.5 million to build a water treatment plant as our present level of treatment was not adequate to guard against cryptosporidium and giardia.
There has never been a really good explanation as to why we need to spend another $72 million to avoid a couple of boil water orders every hundred years or so. But the bureaucrats at the city and their counterparts at VIHA have exercised their considerable power over our impotent elected officials, and now we are springing for a gold plated filtration system to solve a problem that boiling your drinking water every now and then would also solve.
Anyone with a serious health concern I am sure has already invested in their own in home water treatment system if they are immune compromised or have some other serious condition requiring extra caution.
Declaring Nanaimo A Blue Community
Would Mean Banning Water
That Is Arguably Safer Than Our Municipal Water
I really don't think I understand the sense behind this motherhood and apple pie issue but it seems to be the latest cause celeb being touted by none less than a CUPE big wig who addressed city council last meeting.
One item the pro-Blue community folk want to see is the declaration that water is a human right. Fair enough, I suppose food and clothing and shelter are also human rights. But have a civic authority declare it so, has how much weight? When it comes to water as demonstrated recently VIHA has the authority there, and city council just has to smile and nod in agreement.
Another item they want to see the city adopt is the banning of the sale of bottled water at civic facilities. Now this is where I have a problem with the above Daily News story. How can the city argue that the water coming from our taps, at our homes or city venues can possibly be as safe and pure as 'Natural Spring' bottled water?
Did you know, that by federal law, Nestle, or anyone else, can not treat or filter their water in ANY way and still make the claim it is natural spring water? The natural spring bottled water comes from a deep aquifer and is tested hundreds of times daily. A standard that the city of Nanaimo or VIHA has never applied to our drinking water. This means that the natural spring bottled water is at a standard that our tap water NEVER attains, or else there would be no need for treatment, and certainly no need for another $72 million treatment plant.
It will be interesting to see how our crack decision makers deal with this one!
As the name implies, natural spring water comes from an underground water source that flows to the surface of the earth. For water to qualify as spring water, it must be collected pure from the source. Tap water is chemically treated to remove contaminants.
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