Hospitals using waterless bath products as more than 200,000 Nova Scotians remain under boil-water advisory

Grocery stores in Halifax started selling out of bottled water on Tuesday, after an electrical problem at a treatment facility led to a boil-water advisory affecting more than 200,000 people.Residents of Halifax and suburbs that are serviced by the Pockwock Lake treatment facility were advised to boil all water for at least one minute before using it for consumption, including for drinking, cooking, preparing infant formula and brushing teeth.Halifax Water issued the advisory Monday evening. The utility says an internal electrical issue at the Pockwock Lake facility allowed “a limited amount of unchlorinated water to enter the system.”On Tuesday, some daycares, restaurants and coffee shops in the Halifax area were closed.Hospitals—including both QEII Health Sciences Centre campuses, and the Cobequid Community Health Centre in Lower Sackville—said they were using waterless bath products to clean patients, and urged anyone with open skin wounds to avoid showers. Nova Scotia Health spokesperson Brendan Elliott said “a couple of dozen” endoscopy procedures were cancelled.By Tuesday morning grocery stores in Halifax started selling out of bottled water, including at both the Mumford Road and Queen Street Sobeys locations. Across the harbour, one worker at Wyse Road Sobeys in Dartmouth—where residents get water from a different treatment facility—confirmed bottled water was still on the shelves. Although bottled water is expected on delivery trucks on Tuesday night in both Halifax and Dartmouth, it’s not clear how much bottled water each Sobeys will receive.Nova Scotia Liberal Party Leader Zach Churchill issued a statement Tuesday morning criticizing the delay in the provincial emergency system. Halifax Water issued the boil-water advisory Monday to media at 6:03 p.m., and a message was sent through the emergency alert system at 8:49 p.m. Calling the delay “unacceptable,” Churchill said, “It should be standard practice for the province to issue an emergency alert as soon as it becomes aware of the issue.”The utility said staff were working on options to flush the untreated drinking water out of the system, as it continued to monitor water quality and investigate the cause of the electrical problem.In addition to the Halifax peninsula, affected communities are Beaver Bank, Middle and Lower Sackville, Hammonds Plains, Bedford, Timberlea, Spryfield and Herring Cove.

Hospitals using waterless bath products as more than 200,000 Nova Scotians remain under boil-water advisory

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