An oily plastic container at heart of Sachs Harbour water contamination this spring
CBC
An oily container confused for a clean one is what left half of Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., without usable tap water for a month this past spring, according to government emails obtained by CBC.
On March 23, a do not consume advisory was issued from the territory's chief environmental health officer after the smell of fuel and an oily sheen was found in water deliveries, according to a news release at the time.
Affected buildings included the health centre, public housing and the RCMP detachment and barracks as well as several residential units.
From the day a do not consume advisory was issued to the day it was rescinded on April 22, few details on the cause, response and extent of the contamination that affected the Beaufort Delta community were released.
At the time, calls from CBC News to the hamlet office, mayor and senior administrative officer (SAO) were not returned.
But emails obtained in an access to information request show as much as half of the community — 14 units — were affected by the contaminated water.
But there was initial fear the entire hamlet, of just over 100, was going to be affected.
"So thankfully it's only half the town," the SAO (who's name was redacted) wrote in an email to Shawn Hardy, a territorial environmental health officer, on March 23.
The contamination was first discovered when residents began reporting a fuel smell coming from their water on March 21, the SAO wrote to Hardy. Some even discovered a yellow film at the top of their water tank.
"Also on Monday evening another household member stated her laundry smelled like fuel," the email reads.
Tests on the water truck as well as several homes and buildings in the affected area were found to have fuel in the water supply.
The incident came just months after the City of Iqaluit had to declare an emergency due to fuel-contaminated drinking water last October.
The cause in Sachs Harbour, however, was determined to likely be the result of a plastic container mix-up, according to an email from the SAO.
An individual (whose name is redacted) was working on a furnace that had run out of fuel.
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