While the precautionary public drinking water advisory in Weyburn was lifted by Wednesday last week, just in time for the Easter long weekend, it was put in place for a reason. Patrick Boyle with the Water Security Agency says  are just that - precautionary.

Boyle noted they are issued even with small hiccups at a water treatment plant.

"The precautionary drinking water advisories are issued in any of those cases where we detect a guideline or level that goes above what our Canadian Drinking Water Guidelines are, or, most common, is depressurization in a system," he explained.

Weyburn’s most recent PDWA went into effect on April 14 and was lifted on the afternoon of April 17.

“We want to prevent against those issues, until we can confirm through the testing, that everything is clear,” he said.

“It is something we take pretty seriously, because there is histories, [such as] with North Battleford, and other cases, in Ontario with Walkerton, that you never want to lose sight of those, and that is the importance of keeping your drinking water safe,” added Boyle.

Whether it’s a simple matter of depressurization at the water treatment plant or something more threatening to public safety, the PDWA is put in place to ensure nobody gets sick from drinking water. Once a pressure issue or other issue has occurred, the water is tested and the PDWA stays in effect until the test results come back clear.