The boil water advisory for Winnipeg has been lifted.
Officials said the latest testing confirms the positive samples from earlier in the week are indeed false positives.
To prove the water is safe, Mayor Brian Bowman drank tap water at an afternoon news conference urging Winnipeggers to go back to their normal routines.
The city does not know what caused the false positives but says an investigation is being launched in an effort to find answers.
On Tuesday, Winnipeggers flooded stores in search of as much bottled water as they could carry.
This is the second boil-water advisory in the last two years in Winnipeg, with a section of St. Vital previously affected in 2013.
The City of Winnipeg released information from the Province of Manitoba about what to do during a boil water advisory and when it is lifted for places like restaurants, schools, hospitals and community centres.
Some of the standards include:
- All water given to patients or customers must come from a reliable source – such as bottled water
- All food prepared before the advisory must be thrown out and containers washed in a commercial dishwasher
- Fountains and beverage dispensers must be disconnected. ** Commercial coffee makers connected to water lines can be used if you can prove a certain temperature is maintained (82 degrees if there’s a built in thermostat – 71 degrees by doing a test with a thermometer)
- Showers must be shut down in areas where children or others might be at risk of swallowing the water
Standards on what to do once the advisory ends include:
- Flush the building’s water by running one hot water tap until the water runs cold. Then turn on all cold water taps, fountains, shower heads, outdoor hoses
- Clean faucets and all food preparation areas
- Replacing (not just cleaning) water filter cartridges
- Use clean water to make a batch of ice then discard it
- with files from Alesia Fieldberg
