Ministry changes to the amount of arsenic that is acceptable in drinking water are forcing the municipality of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh to look at some of the wells in the Dungannon area.
Reeve Ben Van Diepenbeek explains arsenic occurs naturally in rocks, and the government currently considers 25 parts per million acceptable, but that will drop to ten parts per million as of January, 2018. Van Diepenbeek says some of the wells in the Dungannon area range between 10 and 20.
He says they're with B. M. Ross, and they're currently looking at two options. One would be to take water from different places or depths in the ground water, and another would be to filter the water.
He adds at this point they're trying to isolate the areas where the concentrations are highest, and if they're not successful in doing that they'll have to turn to filtration or finding another site.
Van Diepenbeek says how they resolve the problem will depend on the report they get back from B. M. Ross, but he expects they'll have resolved the problem before the deadline of January 2018.