A boil water advisory lasted from Saturday until Wednesday, October 16 for residents in the Northside Water Services area of Vanderhoof. This was a result of one sample containing Escherichia coli contaminants, a harmful bacteria commonly found in the intestines.
Because of the long weekend, the sample couldn't be tested at the Vancouver lab until Tuesday, which meant that the 200 customers as well as hospital residents lived on boiled water for several days.
"It seems to be most likely a sampler error," said Wesley Manwaring of Northside Water Services (NWS). "It was just one sample taken so there was nothing to compare with at the time and being closed on the weekend of course Murphy's law will come into effect."
The samples were sent out on Monday evening and didn't return until Wednesday afternoon at which time NWS informed residents that all was well.
"[They] took a long time to get the results but yeah all seven samples that we sent in for the retest came back clean," said Manwaring. "It was the lowest count you could get for a positive count. Maybe a finger got too close to the bottle or was touching the top of the bottle. Just somewhere in between here and the lab I guess it got contaminated."
Most of Vanderhoof uses the districts water service so they were unaffected by the advisory.