Virden copes with water challenges

VIRDEN — Some residents in Virden say their water usage has changed since high levels of arsenic were found in the town’s water supply late last year.

One community member said she has ramped up her purchases of bottled water since a precautionary water quality advisory was posted on the town’s website in October.

“It’s been more common to purchase water every time I go to the drugstore — get a 12-pack or two-four pack, whatever’s on sale,” Virden resident Chris Dunning said.

Dunning said she has cut down on her water usage, “just for my own health.”

The town’s aquifer was found last month to have roughly 0.25 milligrams of arsenic per litre of water — well above Health Canada’s drinking water safety guideline limit of 0.10.

A Dec. 19 drinking water quality advisory, which is still in effect, says people should use bottled water for drinking and making food, while tap water is OK for things like laundry, showering and washing dishes.

The town has been dealing with arsenic in its water sources for years.

Boiling the water won’t reduce the level of arsenic and could even increase the concentration “very slightly,” the advisory said.

The guideline is based on lifetime exposure of 70 years, which “can slightly increase cancer risk” over long periods of time.

Dunning said she’s not concerned that the town is in this situation because “it’s been like this for years and years.”

“What’s another year, other than … our taxes will definitely go up to try and offset the expenses?”

The precautionary advisory was posted in mid-October as the town prepared to move to a new aquifer after consultants found its existing source was “seriously low.” The province said the town moved to the new source in November.

Another resident said he started hauling water from his friend’s farm after the first advisory in October, but he briefly stopped doing so because the town wasn’t posting regular updates, and he figured the advisory had been lifted.

Darren More said he stopped using tap water in October, but slowly went back to it until he saw the December notice.

“I’d been unknowingly drinking the arsenic levels,” the 45-year-old said while out walking his two dogs. “I have Lyme disease, and I kind of noticed a little more upset stomach and just feeling weird.”

Now he’s back to hauling water with a giant orange water cooler again, “just to be on the safe side.”

More said the advisory doesn’t overly concern him, though he would like the town to improve communication on the situation, even if it’s just on Facebook.

“In 2026, messaging can be done so much more quickly and easily,” More said.

“In this day and age, you’re not writing the letter to everybody in town once a week and stamping and mailing and hoping they get it. You can send out a Facebook message saying that there’s no change from last week.”

In a phone interview Wednesday, Mayor Tina Williams said the town is still looking for another water source and is making changes to its current plant to deal with the high levels of arsenic.

The changes include how the water runs through the plant, to bring it more in line with how the previous system operated.

Williams said there hasn’t been much change since the town’s Dec. 19 advisory.

While the advisory suggests people use different sources of water for food and drinking, she said the current wells “don’t have high arsenic.”

“They have slightly above the Canadian levels at the moment, but, I mean, there’s nothing high about it,” Williams said.

The levels of arsenic go up and down regularly because the chemical element is naturally occurring, she said.

“Our engineers are working on doing some changes in the plants that we hope will kind of deal with that,” she said. “But that will be a few weeks from now where we know much about that.”

She said the town will continue to use those wells “for at least some time” while it waits to hear back from a hydrologist before it can proceed to the next stage.

Finding a new source comes with challenges, because the town uses a lot of water, Williams said.

“We need to find a bigger source. We need to find a more reliable source. So that’s kind of what (the hydrologist) is looking for.”

She added that the town is in regular contact with the province and the water services board.

A provincial spokesperson said the Office of Drinking Water and the department of Environment and Climate Change are responsible for public water systems, issuing advisories and monitoring quality. ECC and Manitoba Health “remain closely engaged with the Town of Virden,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Assistant Prof. Chengjin Wang, an expert in water treatment, said the recent levels of arsenic found in Virden’s supply is dangerous in the long term.

“We do have concerns about the water quality, because arsenic is a carcinogen,” Wang, who teaches at the University of Manitoba, said Wednesday.

Over long periods of time, arsenic can cause cancer along with other chronic diseases, he said.

The Virden levels have “a potential to impact people’s health,” Wang said.

He added that it’s not like every person drinking the water will get cancer over the long term, but “it will increase the probability.”

Wang said in Virden’s situation, he would recommend finding a new water source altogether. And, “if you have no other alternative,” upgrades to the town’s treatment technologies, like reverse osmosis or ion exchange technology, could work.

For resident Les Martens, the hope is that whatever source the town uses down the road, it won’t break the bank.

Martens said he trusts local officials will meet the town’s water needs, since “they drink it too.”

“We’re hoping that they can find a well or a source of water that is of the quality that we would want for our town,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s anything else we can really hope for.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com