Officials hope to extract semi-truck from North Thompson River today

TNRD EOC Information Officer Debbie Sell says a meeting was held last night to update residents on the situation. She says affected residents were also able to share their concerns.

“Their concerns were mainly about how long the water system would be unavailable and kind of what the next steps were, so those were the main questions that came up yesterday,” Sell says. “We trucked water up to Vavenby yesterday — both bulk water that people could fill up containers as well as bottled water for drinking — and that has been made available to all of the water system users at the fire hall.”

“People can go there between 1:00 and 7:00 each afternoon to pick up any drinking water or domestic water that they need to use, and we’ll keep that going for as long as the water system is shut off.”

She adds TNRD and provincial representatives were at the meeting, where they discussed the plan to remove the vehicle from the river Monday.

Sell says the only time water should be used is for flushing toilets, and bulk along with bottled water are available for residents.

“There’s been environmental assessments already being done so there’s been those professionals on site and they’re continuing to monitor the whole situation to see what the fuel leakage has been, so that is already occurring,” Sell says. “But then the water sampling will occur after the truck and trailer have been removed, because then the contaminant is actually out of the river.”

The water system will remain under a ‘Do Not Use’ order from Interior Health until officials are able to take water samples and ensure that no contaminants went into the system.

Southeast District RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Dan Moskaluk could not be reached for comment about the accident itself.

by Ashley Legassic

Officials hope to extract semi-truck from North Thompson River today

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