The advisory to boil water remains in Vancouver even though there was a lot less rain at the weekend than was forecast. The scenes of panic reported on in the paper on Saturday are, it is to be hoped, a thing of the past as people realise that boiling water isn’t all that hard, and then filtering it afterwards does get rid of most of the silt. I was amused at the note sent home from my son’s school which pointed out “detailed information on how to boil water has been published in all major newspapers and is available on line” — do they not teach you how to boil water in school these days? If anyone needs the info, here’s the WikiHow page — just remember you have to boil it for at least a minute to kill any bacteria. Mind you, reading the current advisory makes it clear that there isn’t actually any proven problem with the water here other than the look and taste of it, the authorities are just being careful (and no doubt mindful of the Walkerton disaster, although they dispute any connection).
The biggest consequence for most of Vancouver was that various coffee joints were shut (those that couldn’t guarantee boiling the water for long enough), as was our local tea shop. I found the latter particularly ironic given the likely role that tea, and the necessity of boiling water for it, played in cutting down infant mortality in the 1700s in Britain — a summary is in this article: Did tea and beer make Britain great?. Oh well, maybe it was shut because the contaminants in the water would affect the taste of the tea; I haven’t yet had a chance to ask.
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Tea and beer — makes you proud to be British!
Why would a business shut down rather than just agree to boil their water a little bit longer?
It turns out that the tea shop basically shut down just for the first day. They do boil their water enough, and filter it as well, even when there isn’t a boil water advisory on, so I would hazard a guess that they panicked a little and decided to shut down to be on the safe side while they reviewed their processes. I had lunch there yesterday and everything seemed back to normal. The coffee shops are open again now too after the powers that be decided that 74 deg C (the temperature that most coffee places heat their water to) was hot enough to kill the potential bacteria.
tea and whisky — way to go!!!!
Love the tea at our Queen Victoria Building
Hi, after flooding here in Oz, there has also been the same problems you have had. No beer, and coffeee becaus of bugs. It’s strange tat ithappened exactly 6 months apart. I think that’s a bit freaky.
There are some nasties that can be killed just by boiling the water like blue green algae. This is why water filters are needed or even to the point of distilling the water.
Kakuzo Okakura wrote in his the book of tea that â€water in mountains is best, in rivers is ok, and in wells is second rate.â€
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