Canadian treatment plant mix-up turns town’s tap water ‘very, very pink’

Residents in the small Canadian town of Onoway were surprised and disturbed this week when they turned on their taps and pink water flowed out.

How pink was it? “Very, very pink,” said Vicki Veldhuyzen Van Zanten.

Take a look.

“My water is broken,” wrote one resident who posted video on his Facebook page Monday as the discolored water filled up his sink.

CTV reports that the mayor of the town, which is about an hour northwest of Edmonton, issued a statement in which he blamed the water’s reddish hue to potassium permanganate, a chemical disinfectant used to treat wastewater and, among other things, remove hydrogen sulfide, which produces a rotten egg smell.

Mayor Dale Krasnow said there was a problem with some equipment at the town’s treatment plant and the substance leaked into the distribution system.

“We do a weekly flush and have done it for years and years, and nothing like this has ever happened before,” Krasnow told CTV.

He advised residents that the water was safe and apologized for not informing them more quickly about the incident which affected the town’s population of 1,000 people.

The television station reported that by Tuesday afternoon the pipes had been flushed and the water had returned to normal.

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