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Mobile app provides water advisories across Canada

Toronto – A new iPhone app provides a current list of drinking water advisories in Canada is available from WaterKeeper Ontario.

Using research data from Water Today, Waterkeeper’s Drink Guide app lists four types of advisories: Boil Water, Do Not Consume, Water Shortage, and Cyanobacteria (Blue-Green Algae).

The Ontario WaterKeeper website lists statistics about water advisories:

• On any given day, there are about 1,600 water advisories in Canada.
• Between four and 25 new advisories are issued each day.
• Aging infrastructure, which leads to water main breaks, is a significant reason for advisories.
• Blue-green algae is increasingly threatening our drinking water in the summer and fall months.
• Water shortages were reported in Alberta and British Columbia for the first time in 2015, due to drought.
• Rural areas, smaller municipal systems, and First Nations communities are more likely to be affected by drinking water advisories than major urban centres.

For more information, download Drink Guide for iPhone in the app store or here: www.waterkeeper.ca/drink-guide/, browse the advisories online at www.watertoday.ca. The public also can receive alerts for drinking water advisories in a specific area by signing up through the app or online.