The mayor of Shawinigan, Michel Angers, refused to say if he is affected by the preventive boil water advisory which has affected 30,000 of the approximately 50,000 residents of his city for three months.
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“Why are you asking me that question?” First replied Mayor Michel Angers, when Philippe-Vincent Foisy asked him the question on QUB radio on Friday.
“I can’t tell you that I consume it, that I drink it, because I have no right to say it,” said the mayor.
“If I decided to drink it, to give you an example, I have to set an example. From the moment I set an example for people, what I say is that yes, there is a preventive boil water advisory and yes, you have to be able to do it,” added Mr Angers.
It will take several more months before a return to normal in Shawinigan. The new Lac à la Pêche drinking water treatment plant, the centerpiece of a $64 million project, was only in operation from January 2020 to December 2021. The infrastructure experienced several technical problems before its total shutdown.