WHITE ROCK – WHITE ROCK – White Rock residents will find out in several months if their tap water will be chlorinated now that the boil water advisory was finally lifted on Wednesday.

Now that the crisis is over, debate is sure to grow as to whether chlorine should be added to the water.

“It’s going to be discussed for sure,” said David Rector David, director of water services for EPCOR, the company that provides 20,000 White Rock residents and about 80 South Surrey households with water. EPCOR operates the six wells and three reservoirs connected to the Sunnyside Uplands aquifer. It’s expected to investigate what went wrong and then forward a report to the Fraser Health Authority for consideration, he added.

During a press conference last week, Rector noted that chlorination would have prevented the low-level E. coli contamination, which was discovered during routine monthly testing.

Many White Rock residents like the water’s taste as is, but this experience appears to have changed some minds.

Mayor Catherine Ferguson said city hall has been receiving adamant mail from residents on either side of the chlorination debate.

“There have been mixed comments back and forth,” she said. “That’s going to be a decision of Fraser Health. This has got to be left to the people in charge of health and safety.”

The Fraser Health Authority lifted the boil water advisory at 7 a.m. Wednesday after four consecutive days of negative test results for E. coli in the city’s water system. The FHA required three negative results in a row to cancel the advisory. Rector said the system’s water has been clean since last Wednesday but they just wanted to be sure.

The boil water advisory had been called on Aug. 20. Rector said lab results confirmed the E. coli wasn’t the same type that killed at least seven people and made thousands of others sick in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000.

Despite news reports suggesting White Rock’s contamination was caused by pigeon poop, Rector suspects “it was probably a seagull.”

There have been no reports of illness related to the contamination.

“I’m very happy,” Rector said. “This was quite a shock for everybody.”