Despite being small in stature, the City of Greenwood accomplished something big by taking home the Best Municipal Water in the World award from the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Competition in West Virginia.
Mayor Nipper Kettle and the city have been featured in articles and news stories across the country.
Greenwood does not use chlorination and draws its water from three untreated wells, which are pumped from an aquifer.
The fact that the city down Highway 3 and its award-winning water isn’t chlorinated has some in Grand Forks wondering why that city’s water has to be chlorinated – Grand Forks doesn’t have a filtration or purification system but rather uses a chlorination system.
While having untreated water that is free of chlorine in Grand Forks would be good, it isn’t ideal.
According to Sasha Bird, Grand Forks’ manager of technical services and utilities, the city is mandated by Interior Health to chlorinate water because of E. coli concerns and has been doing so since 2007.
While E. coli is found in humans’ lower intestine and most strains don’t cause harm, some variations have been known to cause food poisoning.
E. coli had a detrimental effect on the community of Walkerton, Ont. in 2000, when a deadly strain of the bacteria got into the water supply and people began suffering a series of ailments, including diarrhea – in some cases the ailments led to death.
That community’s utilities commission initially said that its water was OK but eventually issued an advisory for residents to boil water.
Health Canada’s website states that based on current scientific data, the benefits of chlorinating drinking water is greater than the byproducts that are produced from chlorination, such as trihalomethanes (THMs).
Greenwood should be commended for having untreated water and in fact, it has with the award from the competition.
But places like Greenwood, that don’t chlorinate water, are more exceptions than the rule.
Walkerton was a tragedy and if it can be prevented by the use of chlorine in Grand Forks’ water, then so be it.
Besides, if people in the city want to have better tasting drinking water, there are always filters and faucet attachments that can filter out chlorine and other water contaminants.
– Grand Forks Gazette