White Rock to stop treating drinking water with chlorine
City commits $14 million to new water treatments
The City of White Rock is dropping the use of chlorine as a secondary disinfectant for its drinking water.
In some areas, the water has the colour of coffee because of chlorine reacting with the manganese in the water.
That has led to complaints from residents and now a switch to monochloramine instead.
"Monochloramine isn't something new. it has been used since the 1930s. it has been approved by Health Canada and the USEPA and the World Health Organization," chief administrative officer Dan Bottrill said.
"Nearly 100 million North Americans are drinking this."
The city says it decided to use chlorine when it took over control of the water treatment system in 2015 because residents then opposed chloramine.
Despite the city saying the drinking water meets Health Canada guidelines, it has committed $14 million to new water treatments to lower its naturally occurring arsenic and manganese.
With files from Tina Lovgreen