Our shared Atlin Lake waterfront is one of our greatest community treasures and it’s also the source of our precious drinking water, which needs protection. A recent consultant report was completed for TRTFN regarding protecting our drinking water and Atlin Lake. This comprehensive report has identified concerns from certain local activities that increase the risk of potential contamination of Atlin Lake, near our collective water source.
TRTFN wants to share these findings and recommendations with the Atlin community as all drinking water intake users along the Atlin waterfront are equally exposed to the identified potential concerns of contamination. We wish to encourage respectful community discussion around this issue, preventative actions, receive feedback, and seek solution tools for source water protection.
Potential hazards from the identified activities are primarily from commercial (marina & aerospace) and to a lesser degree recreational, residential, and mining. Identified contaminants of concern were hydro-carbons, oils, lubricants, chemicals, sewage nutrients, bacteria and protozoans.
TRTFN wishes to seek collaborative preventative action to protect the water quality of Atlin’s waterfront.
We wish to collectively manage activities that are or could become significant hazards to the quality of the community’s drinking water sources. We wish to jointly review and action the recommendations of the consultant report and any additional agreed-upon protection tools. Examples are waterfront signage, summer portable toilets, taking inventory of the local concerns and risks around fuel storage and handling, spill response equipment, knowledge, and training. Determining other protection needs. There is also an opportunity to have source water protection conditions within the Atlin OCP.
