Council Targeting Safe Drinking Water Grant to Address Verner Problem
"We need clean and clear water for our residents..."
At a recent council meeting, Mayor Kathleen Thorne-Rochon updated residents on the impact of council’s trip to Toronto for the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference.
In her summary, she highlighted that she met with the Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma to discuss a new avenue to fund the necessary work to address Verner’s water quality issues.
In her meeting, Thorne-Rochon was made aware of new grants through the Health and Safety Water Stream of the province’s Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program (MHIP). The new grants will target rural and first nation communities that lack safe drinking water or reliable wastewater services.
Thorne-Rochon told the West Nipissing Tribune last week that this latest funding stream falls more in line with the current situation. She added that Verner’s problem is not about capacity to build more houses but “We need clean and clear water for our residents. We’re hopeful that our funding application will be well-received...”
While this announcement has certainly led to optimism for Verner residents, it has also reinforced some of the ongoing fears of the local population.
Verner has dealt with dangerously high levels of manganese in their water for several years. But while residents have routinely dealt with very discoloured water, municipal officials have always maintained that there are no safety concerns and that the water has been safe to drink.
Historically, the municipality has stated that high levels of manganese in the water source are just an aesthetic problem. However, new research has indicated there may be serious health risks.
The proposed long-term solution to address this issue was planned by the previous council back in 2021. The plan was to connect Verner to the main water line in Sturgeon Falls at an estimated cost of $10M. At the time, the municipality had indicated that the new line would be in service within a “couple years”.
However, four years later, there are still no plans to undertake this project. This has been attributed to the lack of funds in the city coffers for such a substantial project.
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''New research suggests that maganese may be a problem...." If that is the excuse for delaying prompt action then it is not a very good one. WHO confirmed as far back as 2011 that maganese was a danger to health especially in young children. The US scientific community has been blowing the whistle on this issue since 2018! This is not 'new' research and saying that they did not know the risks just doesn't fly. Here is a link to the research papers. As you can see anyone who cared to know would have found the danger already grabbing scientific headlines as far back as 2009!................https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=earliest+research+linking+health+and+manganese+in+drinking+water&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Not only does Verner need clean clear water but so do we here in Sturgeon Falls. On many occasions since We have moved onto Church Street we have had dirty brown water. We have been told by the water treatment plant the infrastructure is over 100 years old. Time for some upgrades. No one on our block drinks the swamp smelling, dirty disgusting water.