Ottawa Citizen

Sudden flood of boil orders exposes Newfoundland's many water woes

MICHAEL MACDONALD

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) - Newfoundland is finally paying the price for its long-standing practice of ignoring pleas to install proper water-treatment equipment in scores of its municipalities, local politicians say.

The province now accounts for about half of the boil water advisories in Canada even though it has only two per cent of the population. "The bureaucrats responsible for water quality are covering their butts by telling everybody to boil," says Bob Fisher, the mayor of Bauline, a town of 380 people northwest of St. John's.

It's a huge embarrassment for a province that is already taking heat for resurrecting a proposal to start exporting its fresh water in bulk.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), June 03, 2001