Prince Rupert's water woes made for a pre ANBT conversation starter

The state of Prince Rupert's drinking
water recently made for an
energetic discussion on the
ANBT Facebook page

The 60th edition of the All Native Basketball Tournament is officially underway, with the host community of Lax Kw'alaams providing for a spectacular launch for the event on Sunday evening as dancers and drummers from the community took to the floor of the Russell Gamble Gymnasium to welcome visitors and participants to the tournament.

And while reviews of opening night and  those for the remainder of the tournament action will no doubt be the focus of debate through the week, one topic of note for the community did make for some of the discussion prior to the start of the tournament on Sunday.

Prince Rupert's recent Boil Water Order and subsequent reassessment as a Water Quality Advisory made for a well worked theme on the ANBT Facebook page in the days leading up to the tournament tip off on Sunday.

With tournament organizer making note last week that they had received assurances from Northern Health as to the status of the water and that the Health Authority was conducting a review of the water fountains at the Civic Centre complex.

As we noted on Friday, the City of Prince Rupert has not provided for any further updates on the city's water situation since their downgrade of the alert on January 25th, and for some of the visitors some kind of official notice on the state of the water would be welcome.

Of particular note for those that will be spending a lot of time taking in the action at Russell Gamble Gymnasium and Arena is the nature of the water that which is coming from the drinking fountains at the Civic Centre.

A quick scan of some of the commentary from the discussion on the ANBT page, would indicate that for a number of visitors the best course of action for their one week stay in Prince Rupert, is going to be a few stops in at local stores to keep a handy supply of bottled water available for use.

You can review the comments asnd observations from the thirty six participants on the theme to this point here.

The latest status of the city's water supply should be a topic that the City of Prince Rupert, as host community for the event may want to take some communication effort towards.

An updated notice would serve reassure the guests in town for the tournament as to the latest information related to the past water situation and where things stand heading into the heart of tournament week.

You can trace the the background to the recent water situation in Prince Rupert from our archive page related to the issue here.

For more notes on this years All Native Tournament see our anchor page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.