Casselman mayor to meet with Ontario minister to discuss water quality

The mayor of Casselman, Ont., is preparing to meet the province's infrastructure minister to discuss high levels of manganese that have turned her municipality's water a murky brown periodically for the better part of a decade.

For years, residents have been coping with water discoloured by high levels of the mineral leaching from the South Nation River. The problem gets worse as water levels decrease, as they did in the summer.

Health Canada says exposure to high levels of manganese, even for short periods of time, can be dangerous to infants. It says short-term exposure is unlikely to cause negative health effects for adults and older children.

The town has come up with a plan to connect its water system with that of nearby Clarence-Rockland, which obtains its water from the Ottawa River. 

The problem: the 22-kilometre project is estimated by Mayor Geneviève Lajoie to cost more than $100 million in the short term — a sizeable price tag for a town of only a few thousand people.

Problem expected to worsen

"It's very important that we get this connection to the Ottawa River so that we're not faced with this problem summer after summer," Lajoie told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning earlier this week.

Lajoie said time is running short because Clarence-Rockland has started its environmental assessment of the proposal and Casselman won't get this chance again.

She said the manganese concentrations are also getting worse as the climate changes.

"This water source is not going to be sustainable throughout the decades as the levels are depleting," she added.

"It's not visible to the eye, obviously. It's millimetres but it is a trend."

On Wednesday night, Lajoie met with residents to collect their testimony ahead of her discussion with Ontario Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma, set for Tuesday evening.

"I want them to feel that they have a voice at the table," she said. "I think it's important that people have that sense of control over the situation."

She said the project will require funding from both the provincial and federal governments and it likely will take Casselman decades to repay any loans it receives.

Ottawa Morning7:54The search for a permanent fix to Casselman’s tap water problem.

The town of Casselman has struggled with brownish water coming out of its taps for years. High levels of manganese have left people unsure of their water supply. Now the mayor of Casselman is meeting with Ontario’s infrastructure minister to talk about ways to fix the problem for good.

Last summer, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit cautioned parents not to use the water for baby formula because the levels were surpassing Health Canada's recommendations.

Lajoie said this year the levels have been lower, due to heavy rainfall over the region.

She called the proposal to connect the town to its neighbour's water system a long-term solution to the community's water woes, but added it's not the only measure being taken.

The municipality has also embarked on a pilot project to install a chlorine dioxide generator to quickly disinfect the water and reduce its cloudiness.

"That's going to be a short-term [solution]," Lajoie said, adding her community is only expected to grow in coming years. 

"The thing is, we cannot keep up with the amount of pollution and mineral content in the water. We can't treat it fast enough to service our community."