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LETTERS: Water clearer on other side

Editor:
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Editor:

The water situation we are enduring in White Rock is a disaster of growing proportions.

I have endured Guinness-coloured water flowing out of my taps and fouling my plumbing and strainers.

This latest “flushing” of our system resulted not only in dark brown water and grit but an oily residue of grease on the bottom of my bathtub that took a great deal of scrubbing to remove.

I have lived on both sides of the White Rock/Surrey border since 1979. White Rock water in the past was far superior, before the powers that be started adulterating our wells and playing political games while taking no responsibility for uncontrolled development over our underground waterways.

A case in point is Oxford and Marine Drive. Water will out, to the detriment of existing homeowners and the poor wee park that has been dug up several times over the past three or more years due to existing underground streams.

Block water in one way, it will flow in another. All of it will enter our bay, poisons and all.

Choramine is a proven ecological disaster all on its own.

The huge financial undertaking that the council is indulging in – fighting a freedom-of-information challenge up to the highest levels – makes me fear for the size of revelations to come.

Meanwhile, I have been forced to buy a well-known filtration device so that I can actually drink our water on a daily basis.

Shame on you. The time for self-serving excuses is past. Now is the time for honest, remedial action to save what we still can.

Pat Patton, White Rock

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Sixteen years ago we moved to South Surrey after a lifetime in Vancouver. We did think, briefly, about buying in White Rock, but the excessive taxes to support an exclusive community convinced us to locate in South Surrey.

White Rock’s obsession with gouging motorists for parking has changed our preferences of businesses to those in Surrey, and it’s not unnoticed that many businesses have also chosen a Surrey address.

But since the days of Hardy Straub, the White Rock administration seems to have become nothing more than some kind of joke. The whole issue of the “purchase” of Epcor and the ongoing mismanagement is nothing short of incredulous.

It’s not just the water that stinks. Sooner or later this council will be facing a court challenge and the facts will be divulged. Meanwhile, White Rock residents are saddled with brown, putrid guck in their water system. It may be bacteriologically “safe,” but would you drink it? Or even bathe in it?

The Metro Vancouver water system has supplied clean, safe water for years. It is available to the valves at 16 Avenue, which, by the way, were opened when the Five Corners fire threatened to deplete White Rock’s supply.

Yes, of course there would be infrastructure upgrades and a charge for Metro Vancouver water, but I doubt it would be more than what the White Rock residents are paying now.

In the meanwhile, let’s see some positive evidence that the mayor and his councillors are actually drinking that stuff.

Gordon E. Swanson, Surrey