City looking to put an end to troubled waters in Lakeview Terrace

For years now, when Lakeview Terrace residents open their taps, discoloured water comes out. The city continues to say it’s safe to drink, but many residents don’t want to take the chance or simply don’t want to drink brown or orange water.

“My hard science background is telling me that it could be potable, if you drink the discoloured water once or maybe a few times, but not if you use it and drink it every day for years. No scientist in this world knows or can tell us how our internal organs are going to be affected by our yellow, reddish, sometimes dark-brown drinking water,” argued Ioan Trif, a long-time Lakeview resident.

“It is unbelievable that in the 21st century in our community, just a few kilometres away from Canada’s Parliament, people are stripped of one of their natural human rights - to have safe, good drinking water. I am sorry to say, but it seems to me that our elected officials have wrong priorities in spending our tax dollars. For example, they are now building a new bike path on Lucerne Boulevard just a few metres away from an existing bike path parallel to the Ottawa River, but citizens in the Lakeview Terrace community have no clean drinking water.”

Financially supported by councillor Richard Bégin, a group of Lakeview residents did carry out tests on their water. The conclusion of the tests is that the water is potable but, as Mr Bégin noted, “understandably, no one wants to bathe in brown water, let alone drink it.”

Along with other residents, Mr and Mrs Trif have been dealing with this water problem for the past five years and it appears this problem will remain for at least a few more.

In the 2017 budget (not officially adopted yet), Gatineau earmarked funds to solve the yellow water problem and added this project in the 2017-2021 investment plan.

“The first step will be to change the water mains on Vanier Road between Aylmer Road and Lucerne Boulevard (2017). The next step (scheduled for 2018) will be to improve the water mains for Lakeview residents, mainly those who live on Crescent Street,” said Deschênes Councillor Richard Bégin.

The Lakeview water infrastructure project is planned over two phases. Stage two is scheduled for 2019. At the same time, Gatineau will look to solve the water problem on Christophe-Colomb Street.

A lingering problem for years, Mr. Bégin explained that one reason why the city is only acting now is because the province has modified some of their rules to fund infrastructure projects.

“The government of Québec needs to contribute to fix or replace such infrastructure. Previously, the issue of yellow water was insufficient in itself to obtain funding. Now, the government does consider it eligible. Québec’s financial contribution for projects of the like is crucial,” explained Bégin.

Over the years, the yellow water issue has also become a priority for council, following a steady flow of complaints. For example, the Trifs lodged more than 100 calls to the 3-1-1 in water-related problems, and they are not alone. Sylvie Lemay, who lives on Christophe-Colomb, has also regularly complained to the city about her discoulored water. This issue affects various neighbourhoods across the city, but mostly those in older neighbourhoods.

The city indicates that the causes of discoloured water are numerous, but the main culprit is corrosion in cast-iron water mains. Another contributing factor is that the resting period for water in the mains tends to be longer in sparse neighbourhoods, such as Lakeview Terrace, causing the water to become discoloured.