Health unit recommends Casselman, Ont. parents not use tap water for infant formula

The Eastern Ontario Health Unit is recommending parents of infants under four months in Casselman, Ont. not use the municipal drinking water to mix baby formula.

The water in Casselman has been discoloured for more than a week because of higher than normal concentrations of manganese—a mineral found in water, air, and soil. The low water levels on the South Nation River this summer are increasing the concentration of the mineral in the eastern Ontario municipality's drinking water

Dr. Paul Roumeliotis says the water, although discoloured, is safe for adults and older children to drink, but he is advising caution for very young infants.

"Out of extreme caution, given that potential—again, it's a theoretical potential—we are recommending that babies who are four months or less who are exclusively formula-fed, if they are getting their formula and they have to mix it with water at home, we recommend they don't use the Casselman water, just to be sure," he said.

Health Canada's maximum acceptable concentration of 0.12 mg/L is based on infants, the most sensitive population, because some studies suggest an association between manganese in drinking water and neurological effects in children.

Casselman resident Nic Sigounis is a father of newborn daughter, Vasiliki. For the past week he has been buying bottled water to mix her formula, not wanting to take any chances.

"I can’t trust it; I can’t trust it at all. I went to the grocery store to buy bottled water so I could even boil water for pasta and to make formula for my daughter. Yeah, she is being breastfed, but we have to compensate because she drinks more. I have to go buy good filtered water," he told CTV News Ottawa.

Sigounis says the new recommendations are concerning.

"It is even scarier because for a whole week now we have just been using the Brita filter," he says. Even using filters and softeners in his water, the colour is off. "I put her bath in the sink to clean it and the water is yellow!"

Sigounis wants more information on the water from the town and health officials and he is worried about what happens is the high levels of manganese continue for the summer.

"The number one thing is the food we eat, the water we drink, and shelter. Without that what else to we have? I have a little girl and I want to take care of her. If the water is coming in brown,  that doesn’t look normal to me."

Roumeliotis says the concentration has been higher than the Health Canada guideline, but he did not say how high it was.

"We are just looking at trends. It had gone down a bit and then it went up a bit," he said. "How high it goes, to me, is immaterial at this point. It's really trying to get an understanding that it will go down."

He noted that a similar issue happened three years ago and resolved on its own because of the weather.

Since the issue was raised by residents, officials have insisted the water is safe to consume. Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal on Tuesday, Mayor Geneviève Lajoie said the water is tested twice per day, but the municipality is not releasing the concentration levels.

"We're not showing the tests because it opens up confusion for residents to have to try to understand what the test results mean," she said. "When we get the results of the tests, we meet with the public works director, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, OCWA [Ontario Clean Water Agency] every day to discuss what the results are and ensure that the water quality is still safe and it is."

Lajoie said she does not want to cause alarm.

"We're not trying to keep anything quiet. The numbers are going to fluctuate. So, if the numbers go down one day and then up one day, we don't want residents to feel afraid that it signifies that there's a problem because it doesn’t."

She insists the water is safe and she claims she and her family drink it regularly.

"I drink the water every day. My kids, my husband, my dogs," she said.

The municipality's most recent statement on the drinking water was published July 6, and quotes Eastern Ontario Health Unit medical officer of health Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, who linked the increase in manganese concentration to hot weather and declining water levels on the South Nation River.

"For adults and older children, short-term exposure to manganese in drinking water above the Health Canada guideline of 0.12mg/L is unlikely to cause negative health effects," Roumeliotis said. "Some studies suggest that drinking water with high levels of manganese may be harmful to infants and young children, but the level of exposure that could cause this is not clear."

There is no drinking water quality standard for manganese provincially.

Lajoie said work is being done to find a long-term solution to the issue of manganese in the river and the municipal water system. Similar incidents happened in 2016 and 2019.

"The OCWA is doing a lot right now. We've been working with our engineering firm J.L. Richards and they're working with Walkerton Clean Water Centre. We've sent them a few samples this week and they're going to test the water to see if there's other solutions or technologies that we could use to filter the manganese out of the water," she said. "Again, it relates nothing to safety, it's all safe, it's really just the aesthetic quality."

The water is being treated with potassium permanganate but it's a delicate process.

"The dosage for this chemical needs to be cautiously monitored because if they put too much of it, it could cause other chemical reactions and possibly change the water a different colour," she said.

Ideally, more rain would help lower the concentration of the mineral in the river.

"If it starts to rain a lot, that will be a natural way to treat the manganese in the water, so that's our hope," she said. 

--With files from CTV News Ottawa's Leah Larocque.