Unsafe tap water is common in Canada’s Newfoundland. This town just overcame a 1989 boil order.
A boil-water advisory in place since 1989 has been lifted in one Newfoundland fishing community, but dozens of other rural towns in the province are still struggling with long-standing government orders to avoid drinking tap water.
The official letter last month announcing the end of the boil-water advisory in Branch, N.L., said the order had been in effect for 36 years, but Mayor Kelly Power said it’s been much longer since it was safe to drink the community’s water, or even use it for laundry. Power said in an interview:
“This is the first time any resident of Branch can remember being off a boil water [advisory]. It [looked] like apple juice — we couldn’t wash white clothes because it would stain them.”
