CANYON CITY — Is Canyon City’s water safe to drink?

A flyer that went out to residents with their water bills on Monday, Oct. 3, hints that it may not be, although a city official insists there is no reason for alarm.

The flyer advises anybody who is pregnant, has a compromised immune system, has an infant or is elderly to seek advice from their medical care provider about drinking the water as they may be at increased risk from potential disease-causing agents such as bacteria, viruses and parasites that may have infiltrated the city’s water system.

The potential infiltration of Canyon City’s water system stems from the 2015 Canyon Creek Fire, which changed the hydrology of the city’s watershed, according to the flyer sent to residents. Tim Madden of the Canyon City Public Works Department said the likely cause of the change in hydrology is due to fine ash particles from the fire making their way into the town’s reservoir, resulting in the water supply being deemed groundwater with surface influence by the state.

“Our reservoir was a really dark color. We tried to get rid of that. We dumped the water out of the reservoir and got water from John Day and pumped it into our system and did quite a few things to get that out of our reservoir,” Madden said.

The Oregon Health Authority got involved after that, which led to the change in designation from groundwater to groundwater with surface influence. “It took them several tests, but finally they proved that there was some surface water influence in there,” Madden said.

“There was a big rainfall event over the watershed and that caused the drainage above the spring source to get kind of overwhelmed,” explained Bill Goss of the Oregon Health Authority. “That’s when the water with high turbidity got into the system. Turbidity is a measure of the cloudiness of the water. … After that rainstorm it exceeded a trigger level that put the city on a boil advisory for the city for a short period (in August 2019).”

Goss said once that level of turbidity shows up in the water, a follow-up including additional water samples is required. “Those additional samples showed that the spring source was under the influence of surface water,” Goss said.

Madden stressed that the quality of the city’s water is exactly the same as it has always been. “There aren’t pathogens in there,” he said. “We test it every month, and we pass every test that we’ve ever had.”

Goss seems to agree, stating that Canyon City’s water situation doesn’t present a safety hazard in the same way that Flint, Michigan’s water does for residents there. “The purpose of the notice is to let the consumers know that there is an issue with the level of treatment to the drinking water. It doesn’t mean that there is an immediate risk,” Goss said.

Madden acknowledges that there is a slim possibility that something harmful could get into the city’s water, although nothing ever has. “Because there is surface water influence and we don’t have a filtration system … they had us send those flyers out to everyone saying that there could be (some pathogens in the water),” he added.

The city is in the design stage of adding a water filtration system to its reservoir, and the goal is to have the system up and running by the spring or summer of 2023. In the meantime, the city is chlorinating its water, a step Madden says will neutralize any potential pathogens before they reach the homes of residents.

“The possibility for someone to get sick off our water is extremely small,” he said. “Not only do we test every month, but we take daily tests to make sure that the contact time with our chlorine is enough to kill anything if there was anything.”