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LETTERS: Water leadership lacking in wake of fire

Editor: Re: ‘Extraordinary; blaze tapped system, May 20.
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Above (Tracy Holmes photo): Letter writers take issue with the response by White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin to the city’s boil-water advisory – “I never bothered boiling my water.” Below (Teresa Frederick photo) Surrey’s water supply was used by firefighters.

Editor:

Re: 'Extraordinary' blaze tapped system, May 20.

How can a civic leader have the temerity to blithely and casually publicly state that the boil-water notice was “advisory, not an order… purely precautionary,” and then say “I never thought that there was any (contamination), we didn’t have any. I never bothered boiling my water.”

Such statements indicate that the individual clearly has no understanding, nor has taken the time to learn what a boil-water notice is, what it means, and why one is issued.

According to BC Regional Health Authorities, “A boil-water notice is used in situations where the public health threat is significant and the nature of the threat is one that can be effectively addressed by boiling the water.”

Five Corners fireSo if the boil-water notice was not required why was it issued? Why not a water-quality advisory, which is different from a boil-water notice?

How is White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin able to determine that sometimes a boil-water notice means boil your water and sometimes it doesn’t? What criteria is used?

Such statements are not only dangerously irresponsible, they are one more demonstration that Baldwin has an internal yardstick that he applies to his own actions and views that is quite different than is held to the rest of the citizenry.

One of the few positives to note in all this is that, given the amount of water used, we are not having to deal with the release of chloramine into Semiahmoo Bay. As devastating as this fire was, we do note have the massive environmental side effects that would have undoubtedly resulted from the use of chloraminated water as initially planned by the city. Baldwin should thank the citizens of White Rock for that one.

I was also amazed to learn that tapping into the Metro Vancouver water supply was easily managed by the opening of four valves. The citizens of White Rock were told it would be a multimillion-dollar undertaking. Apparently it can be accomplished by one fellow in a pickup truck.

Scott Keddy, White Rock

• • •

I am very concerned about White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin’s statement that the tragic fire at Five Corners was not due to infrastructure inadequacies. In city manager Dan Bottrill’s words, to extinguish it “we were using upwards of 400 litres per second… and our system is built for more like 212 litres per second.”

Surely, then, the system is desperately inadequate!

Yes, it evolved into an “unprecedented” fire, leaving more than 100 people without their homes and personal effects. But would it have been “unprecedented” if they had been able to apply the necessary 400 litres per second from the onset?

How many fires like this will have to occur before city council recognizes this dangerous inadequacy?

M. Lung, White Rock

• • •

So even though the city had issued a boil-watery advisory, which was still in effect on Tuesday and Wednesday, Baldwin on Monday was implicitly encouraging residents to ignore it, effectively overruling the city’s own water experts trying to protect the residents from harm.

Why would this man act so irresponsibly? White Rock requires responsible leadership, not photo-ops and flippant remarks.

Also, he had the audacity to tell the Vancouver Sun “it’s no problem” in relation to the water-supply situation. Tell that to people who had no water at all, and others who reported dark, turbid water coming from their taps. Tell that to the firefighters, who heroically tackled the fire with a water supply that was woefully inadequate.

One wonders how they would cope with a fire in the 24-storey tower block in the city centre. Yet, Baldwin and Co. continue approving more and more tower blocks all over the city.

The fact White Rock had to seek water from Surrey refutes Baldwin’s “no problem” claim.

Many residents have been urging White Rock to join the GVWD supply system, something city leaders seem to refuse to consider, despite the many documented advantages and dangerous levels of arsenic in White Rock’s well water. To add insult to injury, they announced within hours that the needs of the evacuees had been met and that no further donations were necessary. A wholly inappropriate response to people that have lost everything, and to those keen to make donations.

White Rock is the very worst example of how not to run a city. Meanwhile the mayor continues to create his own fantasy world, and the residents suffer in the real world created by so many years of his reign of mismanagement and neglect.

Keith Knightson, White Rock