Boil-water order expected to last until Friday: Saint John officials

Much of Saint John is under a boil-water order after a weekend power outage caused a failure in the chlorination system, affecting about 45,000 customers.

The incident is affecting everyone east of the Reversing Falls, including schools in the area.

Water fountains have been covered and water coolers have been brought in as Saint John schools cope with the boil order.

“This week we have 20 schools that have been impacted by the boil-water order,” confirms Zoe Watson, superintendent of the Anglophone South School District.

“Schools on the east side of Saint John and in the inner city and four of those 20 schools would be our four large high schools, with about 900 students in each one.”

She says a large high school would go through between eight and 12 large 20-litre bottles of water.

Saint John officials expect the boil order will last until Friday, making it one of the longest boil orders the city has experienced in recent years.

“We’ve probably not had this many impacted for this long,” says Watson.

Schools aren’t the only buildings impacted; restaurants also have to adjust to the boil order. Billy Grant, who owns and operates a seafood restaurant in the city, says his business will remain open, despite the order.

“We have no trouble here. We’ve ordered all our water in through Pepsi or we had a big load of water come in the other day because we had Pepsi, we received Pepsi, and it was cases of it that came in, so we offer that to our customers,” says Grant. “As well, we have the Perrier, and we have the boil order here as well, that we boil the water.”

Earlier this year, the city announced its Safe Clean Drinking Water Project, which would see a new water treatment facility. The project is expected to be completed in 2018 and residents are hoping that will decrease the number of boil orders in the city.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Blackford