North Battleford, P.A. could see regular water intake return before winter

It is hoped regular water intake will return to Prince Albert and North Battleford before winter.

Both cities have been on temporary water supply since the Husky oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River back in July.

“I don’t have a definitive timeline but I’m fairly confident that we will probably see the reuse of most of the intakes certainly before winter comes” confirmed Sam Ferris with the Water Security Agency. “It’s taken us a while to come to understand all the implications of the spill but we are making good progress on that, I would like to give you a day to day, but I just can’t.”

Roughly 225,000 litres of oil spilled in to the river and an investigation into the cause continues.

At the height of the spill, 69,000 residents saw their drinking water impacted.

Water samples continue to be taken both by the WSA and Husky. Just one of the recent water samples taken in Saskatchewan came back with pollutants that exceeded safe levels.