NORTH BATTLEFORD — The City of North Battleford is concluding its annual water main flushing process throughout the city this week.
According to the city, the operations department started its annual unidirectional water main line flushing on May 5. This mandatory process allows operators to confirm the city’s water distribution lines are working properly and helps ensure the quality of the water supply.
While water main flushing is undertaken on various streets, applicable signage was posted on the roads. People residing in or with businesses in the designated areas can use their water normally from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. To avoid discoloured water and sediment produced from the flushing process, they are asked not to turn on their taps after 7 p.m. They can fill their bathtub or pails before 7 p.m. for water to manually flush their toilets. They can also set aside water for washing hands, doing dishes, consumption or brushing their teeth.
The water is shut off during flushing to prevent staining of clothes, etc., from any sediments that may be flushed out. There is no danger to the quality of the water, but the clarity would be impacted, the city stated.
"Have a pot of water or a bowl of water prepared ahead of time," said Jeffrey Blanchard, assistant director of city operations.
He noted the water main flushing process usually runs for two weeks before the May long weekend.
"We usually finish up before then," he said. "The reason we don't have a hard deadline is it's all dependent on how the program goes or if you encounter any challenges with the water distribution system; we call them pulls, in the flushing program, when we pull water through a section of pipe."
"The whole objective of the flushing program is to remove the calcium and the manganese build-up in the pipes," Blanchard added. "We have to wait for the colour to come back down to normal."
The workers started with the Riverview neighbourhood and have recently finished 105th Street.
If people in the affected neighbourhoods experiencing water main flushing try to turn on their taps after 7 p.m., the water could come out discoloured.
It could potentially cause discolouration of clothing if a person tries to wash their clothes after 7 p.m.
"It may or may not come out as discolouration because it is little particles of minerals and metals," Blanchard said.
People are advised to let their taps run for a little while after turning on their outside taps or to flush a toilet at 7 a.m. the next morning, after the flushing process.
"If there are any of the particles in their tap, it will flush it out," Blanchard said.
