The City of Williams Lake is aware that Health Canada has recently conducted a review and amendment of its Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality and through the changes has established Maximum Acceptable Concentrations (MAC) for Manganese in drinking water.
Manganese is an essential element in humans and animals, it’s contained in the environment and in drinking water sources, it occurs naturally in the environment and is widely distributed in air, water and soil. Health Canada has been studying the effects of consuming various levels of manganese from drinking water sources. Manganese in appropriate doses is beneficial to human and animal health. New information on the effects of higher concentrations of manganese have prompted the new guidelines for manganese in drinking water.
The new MAC for Manganese has been classified as 0.12mg/L and currently Williams Lake averages slightly above at approximately 0.14mg/L in its drinking water.
The City of Williams Lake would like to affirm that the quality of your drinking water has not deteriorated, only the Canadian Guidelines for drinking water have changed.
The City of Williams Lake has anticipated the possibility of changes to the Canadian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines and has been working over the past two years to ensure that we are in a prominent position to respond to changes such as these through our Water Management Strategy. Improvements to our water infrastructure have already commenced and with our continued work we anticipate being compliant of the new guidelines.
We are currently obtaining as much information as possible from the Health Canada and currently have very limited answers to questions regarding the outcome of the changed guidelines.
For those who would like more information please click on the following resource links to learn more about manganese in drinking water, the City’s Water Management Strategy and drinking water filtration
recommendations:
Federal Government of Canada (Health Canada) Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality:
Guideline Technical Document – Manganese
Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Drinking Water (CDW) – Health Canada
Provincial Government of British Columbia (Ministry of Health) Drinking Water Quality
Interior Health
https://www.interiorhealth.ca/YourEnvironment/DrinkingWater/Pages/default.aspx
First Nations Health Authority
City of Williams Lake Water Management Strategy
https://www.williamslake.ca/DocumentCenter/View/2539/Water-Management-Strategy—Exec-Report
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