The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
On February 13 of this year, the Town of Snow Lake's water treatment plant received a report card of sorts from Water Stewardship's Office of Drinking Water. Rather than subjects such as math, science, and English that one might see on a normal year-end report, this one included others, more adaptive to the water treatment facility. Areas such as disinfection, bacteriological, and physical monitoring were where the marks were given out. And some mighty fine marks they were! Under the three headings above 100 per cent was a common denominator Ð other than under 'frequency of testing', where a respectable 96 per cent showed up and only because one sampling period was missed between Christmas and New Year's. However, Snow Lake's old nemesis 'trihalomethane' (THM) has reared its ugly head once more. A high THM level is the major reason the town was forced to build a new water treatment plant in 2006. Despite this, four dedicated samples submitted by the town in 2008 averaged slightly higher than the allowable limit of 0.1 mg/litre (the town's samples registered 0.119 mg/litre) Trihalomethanes are formed when chlorine reacts with naturally occurring organic matter in the water. Studies have revealed a link between high levels of THMs and cancer. To deal with the problem, Town of Snow Lake CAO Jeff Precourt advised that an assessment study is being completed by J.R. Cousin Consultants Ltd. See 'Water' on pg. Continued from pg. "The study, which commenced this month, will take approximately three months and will conduct an engineering assessment of the entire water system," said Precourt. "This assessment was a regularly scheduled requirement of the Office of Drinking Water. It will give us an opportunity to address the issue of the elevated THM." Furthermore, there were a limited number of complaints to the Public Utilities Board after they did their mail-out in regard to the town's wish to increase water rates in 2009. As a result, the community will be hit with a 25 per cent increase on their water bills effective April 1, 2009. Precourt advises that consumers will receive the first bills using these rates at the beginning of July. A very well laid out and informative synopsis of the government water report, as well as some relevant supplementary information, is available at the town office and on their website. As a bit of an update to an item mentioned in past columns, I'm pleased to announce that all the money is in place to set two amazingly beautiful headstones on the final resting places of both Kate Rice and Dick Woosey. Two late donations Ð $300 from United Steelworkers Local 7106 out of Flin Flon and $200 from Vale-Inco out of Sudbury Ð have secured the objective of this project. As an afterthought, the plan was to use any excess funds to place two bronze plaques honouring the pair of mining pioneers on, or near, the site of their former home on Wekusko Lake's Woosey Island. When Neil Hemauer of The Pas' Hemauer Memorials heard of the plan for the plaques, he very generously donated them both on behalf of his family. This entire project just goes to prove that the people and companies of Northern Manitoba certainly remember and are extremely proud of their roots! Finally, I was just recently informed that the local Branch No. 244 Legion will hold their Second Annual Car, Truck, and Bike Show on the last Saturday in May. There's still plenty of time for folks to prime and polish their pride and joy and get it down to Snow Lake for this prestigious event.
