Editor:
Re: Water plea for Fraser Health, June 16.
Like many others, I resent having to pay to buy drinking water in White Rock in addition to already paying for it in my property tax.
How does the city expect us to drink from or bathe in the disgusting, sludge-filled water depicted on your front page last Friday?
Thank you, Peace Arch News, for revealing this lack of responsibility on the part of the city.
I was amazed that a doctor featured in your story would say no one has reported any sickness. The toxic effects of arsenic and manganese can take years to become apparent in the human body.
Furthermore, anyone less severely ill might make no connection to the water as a cause and certainly would not be able to prove it easily.
I hope your story will wake people up to the health hazards of our water supply and protest the city’s lack of action to maintain this fundamental source of human health.
The year 2019 is just too long to wait.
Beverley Cunningham, White Rock
• • •
Mayor Wayne Baldwin is quoted: “We inherited something that was pretty old.”
Knowing this, why, oh why did mayor and council – and, ultimately, we the taxpayers – proceed with the Epcor purchase instead of pursuing connection to a known quality and cost with the Surrey water system?
The rationale behind the purchase and the undisclosed cost remain as murky as the water.
Keith Enns, White Rock
• • •
A Vancouver Sun article quotes Fraser Health board chair Karen Matty saying, in regards to our unacceptable water in White Rock, that “in order to resolve the problem people have got to work together – there has to be a will to work together.”
White Rock’s water utility sure did that by recently raising our water rates! That sure does not indicate to me of any “working together.”
Before the increase was due, I wrote a letter to the councillors and utility suggesting this increase be deferred due to the fact that the water they are “selling” was not at an acceptable standard. I suggested this would at least show goodwill to us while black water is being delivered to our homes.
This request, as usual, fell on deaf ears.
So, maybe the utility should take the advice of Fraser Health and at the very least help us financially while they fix a very broken water supply.
P. Scott, White Rock