Clean drinking water is one of the city’s top priorities, after all, so you might be interested in knowing exactly why your H20 doesn’t taste so great. Commissioner of Environment Bill Edwards describes the not-very sophisticated process water goes through before it comes out of your tap.
“Currently we take the sticks and debris out of our water and we put in some chlorine that disinfects [it]. Once we add the chlorine there are other disinfection by-products that form as a result. That happens because of the nature of our water, the leaves, the vegetation, the animal remains that are in the surface water, the length of our pipes, we get by-products as a result of the chemicals that we put in. They are a recognized Canadian health hazard. We need to improve the treatment of our water such that the water delivered in your tap doesn’t have any of those harmful, or potentially harmful, by-products.”
Mayor Mel Norton says it’s clear that’s not the way you should be treating water in 2013, and we clearly need to do better.
