The Province of Manitoba, in partnership with Duracan and several municipalities, is offering subsidized well water testing for flood affected residents in the Parkland.
Dianne Guinto, Microbiology Manager for Duracan, said they have plenty of experience, not just with water, but lots of different kinds of testing, which makes them the perfect partner.
"We are an accredited lab, we specialize in an array of analysis for environmental samples, that includes soil, air, water obviously, as well as construction materials that could have asbestos in them..we offer private well subsidies that we have from the government, so we have been coordinating with different municipalities and districts on how they want to collect the drop off, as well as pick ups, and then submitting it to us for testing," said Guinto.
Water sampling bottles for the program are available for pickup at Manitoba Office of Drinking Water regional offices, including Dauphin and Minnedosa, as well as several rural municipality and watershed district offices, including Roblin, McCreary, Swan Valley West, and Inter-Mountain Watershed District, to name just a few.
The testing process itself is fairly simple. The incubation period is around a day, and once the lab has results from your water sample, they'll give you a call if there's anything to be concerned about. Guinto said because of the flooding, there are definitely higher-than-normal levels of contaminants in the samples they receive. Even if you can't tell if your well water is contaminated, the only way to be sure is getting it tested.
"Because of the flooding, we are seeing high presence of coliforms and E. coli in those well waters, that makes water unsafe for drinking...your water can have no indicators that is it contaminated, it can look, smell, or taste normal, but only testing can confirm that there's no disease-causing bacteria in your water, and it is safe to drink," said Guinto.
With the scale of the program, partnerships with municipalities and watershed districts are necessary to make sure it goes smoothly. The Swan Lake Watershed District is one of many watershed districts involved. Bill Gade, RM of Swan Valley West Reeve, said because of the number of residents using private well water systems, he strongly recommends that residents get their water tested, especially considering they were hit very hard by flooding.
"We have some areas in the municipality where the water has a little too much arsenic in it, you can't really use a well there, some areas don't have a lot of well water. There's about a half of the municipality that has good well water and can use it, so we have roughly half our residents are using well water," said Gade.
Within the RM of Dauphin, the RM's water system covers a good number of residents, but there are still a good number of well water users. Ernie Sirski, RM of Dauphin Reeve, said even if your well's immediate area wasn't flooded, it could still be contaminated because of seepage.
"The reality is if you're in a well water situation right now, the issue of overland flooding could have happened. Even just seepage, if you haven't had overland flooding, seepage into the well from water that's 50, 60, 100 feet away could affect the quality, so I would encourage everybody to get it tested," said Sirski.
For more information about where you can pick up well water testing kits, or details about how your local municipality or watershed district is handling samples, call their office.
