Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 03/01) - A federal study painted a misleading picture of storm water draining into Great Slave Lake, says a senior environmental health officer.

"It doesn't compare to us to other municipalities, it was taken at the worst possible time," said Brad Colpitts of the Stanton Regional Health Board's environmental health office.

"I mean, what about the other 362 days of the year?"

Released in July, the study revealed extremely high levels of E. coli bacteria and heavy metals in water samples taken from the city's three main stormwater outlets.

Samples were taken during spring run-off, or freshet, and after a heavy rain.

"We wanted to get a flow in the culvert, because otherwise it just sits there," said Shannon Pagotto, one of the officials who oversaw the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development study.

The analysis was a response to one of the recommendations from a 1998 study of water quality in Back Bay, as part of a city water licence renewal application.

According to Colpitts, however, Pagotto's test results aren't representative of water conditions for most of the year.

"During freshet, things are going to be at their worst, but I don't see people swimming in the water," Colpitts said. "It would be far, far too cold."

The study was forwarded to the territorial Department of Health and Social Services for a health assessment because of the sample results.

Health and Social Services passed it on to the environmental health office, which then sampled lake water next to the outlets.

A office staffer who is out of town this week did the sampling. Colpitts said he will provide the results when the environmental officer returns next week.

Colpitts said bacteria levels in the samples were "well within recreational water quality guidelines."

The DIAND study would be more instructive, he said, if it compared Yellowknife stormwater quality with that of other places.

Colpitts said large cities such as Vancouver and Halifax don't even treat their sewage before dumping it into the ocean.

"I would be quite sure Yellowknife would fare very well by comparison to large southern centres, with the possible exception of arsenic because levels here are naturally higher."

Colpitts said his office has no intention of responding any further to the report.