I love it. Boil the water and you still have turbid water but it doesn't have any of the bugs in it that weren't there in the first place. Why not just run it through a Brita filter or something like that. You pretty well have to do that with tap water anyhow before you drink it. The stench of chlorine is terrible.

Maybe it could be sold as Vancouver Tea.

Shite happens...

Fall, especially November, is one of the worst months for weather...its almost a GVRD tradition the water supply in the reservoirs will be affected. Lasts a few days, wait till next year. If one can't accept it as a cost of living in the GVRD, then drill a well or truck in water like Tofino did.

Incredible- Reports of fisticuffs at a Costco store over bottled water. What the hell are lower mainlanders going to act like when there's a real emergency to deal with? I shudder to think. The chainsaw's gassed up and ready to drop trees across the highway at Hope to keep 'em all down there.

hey... but this is good practice for BC'er's ...a very small peek into our not so distant future...when water and power become scarce...and the people of this province finally wake up and realize how dependent life itself is on a supply of clean water...and power....and that the agenda of the Gordon Campbell government includes the sale of all the rights, the control ( meaning the right to pollute and environmentally damage)... and, of course the right to profit from our precious, indeed life-saving resources to foreign, mostly American interests.

Et tu, Gordo?

Need we even bother asking anymore.

Funny how logging in the watershed gets no media coverage in all of this.

Excellent point, Mooney...but that would mean a spoon-fed press would actually have to become an investigative press to make that connection.

Mooney

Do a fly-over using Google Earth and there is surprisingly little evidence of any damage caused by logging. No major washouts on any of the roads at least. Of course these images are not the most recent but the do reflect a long history of logging in the watersheds.

snert:

Most countertop or undercounter filtration system cannot handle turbidity. They are all meant for clean water.

Thing that "gets" me though, is that this was cauxed by one measley storm that wasn't even hurricane strength. What's going to happen in a REAL emergency, like earthquake, or an actual hurricane (the oceans are warming folks - makes for "interesting" weather!), or volcano, or tsunami?

So far, everyone is angry because there was no coffee for a few days. But the hinterland is out of power after five days, and Vancouver only just had power restored. How about weeks at a time?

I hear emergency measures people are (hastily) revising their "enough supplies for 72 hours" recommendations. Kind of shows that whatever organization we think is out there for us consists of a lot of dart-throwing..........

Echoing others, what would happen in a REAL emergency? The press and politicians are crying wolf over nothing and thus continue to hide real infrastructure problems.

Up to now there is not a single report of ANY micro-organism, bacteria or virus in the water. Only turbidity!!! Granted that there is greater risk of contamination but a big but, there is nothing presently unhealthy in the water except sediment.

What crybabies!!!!

RickW

I never did get to try my Brita on any turbid water. We just haven't had any. Maybe a more robust way of at least pre-filtering the tap water so that most of the larger particles are removed is in order.

I have lived all my life in the GVRD except for a few years in Europe. Turbid water has been a fact of life every time heavy rains have come in the Fall and Winter. We used the water and never ever got sick from its use. Why now? Money and who will reap the benefit? We all know who that is. Up until 1948 we swam in the North Arm of the Fraser until the sewer outfall were installed. THAT was when brown water became 'dirty'. So what is going on? Is it a ploy for the 'sale' of our watersheds to P3s? Increasing water rates sky high? Just remember in many North African countries water is sold on the streets by the cup. Our water is now for sale and if the 'tainted water boggy man' can be used to scare enough of us those who see $$$$$ and profit for their own interests will 'steal' our public resource with little or no trouble.

Frankly, it's embarrassing. I'd be curious to know, though, how much money Starbucks is losing in just five days of not selling coffee... though maybe their bottle water sales are making up for it.
Real crisis, indeed. I was living in Taiwan in '99 when a 7.6 quake struck and we spent three nights sleeping in tents in a park due to major aftershocks coupled with sketchy building codes. It was warm but, you have to wonder- homeless people would be the ones who would deal best, wouldn't they? We would be looking to them for survival tips...

Wonder what all the local microbreweries are doing... or all the bakeries supposedly using water to make dough... or restaurants serving fresh veggies... or the local hothouses...
The whining baby in the blog sure didn't seem to mind drinking coffee out of the pot I pissed in daily at the place we used to work at. He was an idiotic, whining crybaby then and boy, is it ever nice that some thing never change...

Starbuck's only suspended sales for a few hours on Saturday; they were serving again by the afternoon. Their water is triple-filtered, and of course coffee and other hot-water drinks are boiled/steamed. They must have gotten a dispensation from the health authority after appealing or something; likewise all the other coffee shops who are also back in operation.

I tried keeping water jugs as an emergency measure when I lived in an apartment tower in the West End; after about a year the plastic in the jugs "biodegraded" and I had a really wet mess in my kitchen, as well as water leakage into the suite downstairs....

In the meantime, I'm watching the wind gust away outside, wondering when the water will clear; I've been boiling it for coffee, and making my rice in it, and washing (and drying) the dishes). But a 72-hour supply? A one-week supply? Where the hell would I put that in a 650 sq ft apartment?

From what I have heard from my engineer friends over there is there is actually no danger in drinking the water. The turbidity is quite harmless and much like driking clay many people use as laxatives.

The real concern is that one person will get a case of the runs and then run off to a lawyer and sue the GVRD for a huge sum of money.

I connect houses to water mains every day and not one engineer has expressed any concern other than legal.

Timely ad campaign by the feds today. 72 Hours... That's what every good citizen should prepare for. 72 hours without access to power, water, food in case of any emergency. Wonder if the feds know something we don't?

landover:

Turbidity lessens the effectiveness of chlorine treatments, so they are upping the amount of chlorine in the system. The reason that turbidity lessens chlorine effectiveness is because it may well be combining with the carboniferous matter in the mud to form dioxins and furans.

So while there are no organisms that may do you in, the city itself may be doing it...........in the long term.

WM:

You likely hit the proverbial nail on the head.

Or maybe it's all a plot by the bottled water people..........

As long as we don't have to boil the beer! But really, worldwide weather has being getting more chaotic recently and its it looks like mankind isn't that innocent.

It would be useful to have a report on the research which has changed the actions of our public health authorities. Until now, we were told dirty water was safe - just let it stand and settle out. Now we are told that bacteria and small organisms can cling to particles of mud and "hide" from the chlorine. However, none of this has been found in water tested to date - so it appears the water would not harm anyone if consumed. What is this research? Is it one paper or a change in the general consensus of public health authorities? Has anyone ever been harmed by Vancouver's drinking water? Anyone know?

DNA:
WM likely has it right...........it's lawyerus pestilensus, one of the worst viruses to infect mankind!

So is anyone else angry about the breakdown of this basic service? I mean, who the hell do we lynch!?!

How is it that in this day and age in Canada, we do not have potable water for weeks potentially? Weeks!?!? How does a city of the size of Vancouver not have even rudimentary water filtration capabilities?

Forget the inconvenience or how much Starbucks lost - as a matter of principle I'm disgusted at the sheer breakdown in accountability in the GVRD.

Ain't it amazing how angry we ain't.....?

Being a conspiracy theorist, this is yet another spoke in the wheel of "people control" -- along the lines of Orwell's 1984, except "kinder, gentler".

The news networks keep on saying that there have been no reports of illness. I think this is b.s. as I know people who've been sick; sure they didn't go to their doctors or the hospital, but they definitely went to pharmacists. But pharmacists can't serve as epidemiologists, granted. My suspicion on this is if they admit there have been health problems it opens the GVRD wide open for a class action suit.....

Well, if not 1984, then how about The Net?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/
Ya know the part where the bad guys play around with airline schedules and stuff............?