Questions remain after Piney water flows again

Residents and local officials in a southern Manitoba rural municipality are demanding transparency and answers, following the province’s reopening of the Piney water fill station after it was shut down.

More than 50 residents from Piney and surrounding communities gathered at the semi-public fill station on Thursday to voice their concerns about the province closing down the water and worries that more communities would be next.

The fill station was shut down July 18, with the only notice to the community being a sign attached to the station’s wooden boards. Water started flowing again two weeks later as public pressure on the province mounted.

Mark Bernard, Ward 4 Councillor for the RM of Piney, said he first learned about the well’s tap being shut off when he got 10 calls from community members asking why it was closed.

“My stomach sank because I use this water. I love this water, and it’s sacred to the community,” he told The Carillon.

He said there was no communication from the province to the rural municipality before the decision was made to shut down the station or when it was reopened.

The province still hasn’t communicated anything to the RM about the closure, despite repeated attempts from councillors and the RM’s office, Bernard said.

“People who use this water appreciate it and don’t abuse it,” he said. “They don’t bring carloads or campers to fill it up or anything of that sort.”

He said if it comes down to needing someone to take over managing the well, the RM would be ready to step-up in the short term to keep it running.

People in Piney and the neighbouring communities have relied on the water for over 60 years, said Alana Schoenbach. She grew up drinking the water from the station and makes the trip twice a week to fill her family’s water cooler jugs.

“There’s never been a problem. There’s never been a reason to think that there will be a problem,” she said.

Signs near the spigot designate the water as non-potable, but its source is an artesian well. In Piney and other communities, commercial water plants siphon the same water for bottling and sell it back to residents, with some not using chlorine to treat it. The area’s water has previously garned international attention, with Touch Sparkling Mineral Water from Marchand winning gold for best carbonated bottled water in 2018 at the Berkley Springs International Water Tasting.

Schoenbach said it’s encouraging to see the province turn the water back on because if they deemed it to be safe enough for it to be open, then there’s less reason for them to shut it off again. When the water was shut off, Piney residents were quick to mobilize and demand it be turned on, she said.

While Schoenbach has well water on her own property, that water isn’t tested regularly and is only used for washing and cleaning. If the water remained off at the fill station, she would’ve had to drive into Steinbach to get drinking water or pay to have her well water tested more regularly.

Not everyone has the same luxury as her, Schoenbach said, as some people have fixed budgets and paying for water in different towns or for well testing isn’t affordable.

“I think people could resort to drinking water that might not be safe to drink. So, then we’re going to really have some sickness and some problems if that happens,” she said.

Following a June 23 inspection letter from the provincial-run Office of Drinking Water that required upgrades to the system, a Manitoba conservation officer shut off the Piney fill station, said Caedmon Malowany, provincial Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures spokesperson.

The decision to shut down the station wasn’t made by the Office of Drinking Water or the province, but by the local owners, he said in an email statement to The Carillon.

He also said the decision to shut off the nearby Woodridge bulk-fill station, which has been closed for more than year, wasn’t made by the province either. Both the Piney and the Woodridge stations closures haven’t affected wildfire fighting efforts in the area, he said.

After it was shut down, the provincial officials notified the conservation officer that the requirements were misrepresented and directed the officer to reopen the station, Malowany said.

Konrad Narth, Progressive Conservative MLA for La Vérendrye, said that’s not accurate. He asked the province and the local conservation officer for an explanation and found the province required a chlorination system to be installed for the water to keep running, he said.

The water was turned back on not because of misrepresented recommendations but because of public outcry, he said. The conservation department told him the move was temporary, but no timeline was given for how long.

“There are communities outside of Piney and Woodridge and the RM of Piney that are really concerned about what’s happening here today in Piney, because there are hundreds of community wells scattered across the entire province,” he said “They’re concerned that the same justification is going to be used, and the same enforcement is going to be seen in their communities.”

Narth said because water access was limited in Piney and Woodridge, it made battling the wildfires more difficult because the water wasn’t accessible. Keeping the water flowing in both Piney and Woodridge is necessary because it acts as a safety net for people if they have issues with their water at home, he said.