Remember when the City of Chilliwack's drinking water was unchlori-nated? We do.

The city public works department had 20 inspectors at any given time monitoring the system. Tests were done weekly to ensure safety. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent to ensure clean, pure drinking water reached all our taps.

The city's water used to win awards for best drinking water in the country and was once named the fifth best in the world.

World class water. Pure-tasting water. Water we were proud of.

For years, at least a decade, the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) has quietly been watching us and our water. Monitoring us and our water. And not liking the situation one bit.

On Feb. 5 it came to a head and medical health officer Dr. Marcus Lem came to the Eastern Fraser Valley to tell us country bumpkins that enough was enough: He might risk drinking our water but he wouldn't let his daughter do the same. Time to chlorinate.

Then he told us we had "poo" in our water.

His insensitivity seems to have had him booted from the file. Then his even-less sensitive boss, FHA chief medical health officer Dr. Paul Van Buynder, rolled into town with a coterie of security guards and a handful of bureaucrats to tell us, enough is enough, time for chlorination, folks.

Then next day the test came in. One positive, low-level E. coli bacteria sample in Greendale. Emergency chlorine is turned on. An investigation begun.

And now we wait for wait for the health authority bureaucrats that demanded we start to chlorinate our water, to tell us we can stop chlorinating our water.

Drip . . . drip . . . drip.

This might be a long wait.

This might be forever.

We hate to say it, but non-chlorinated water in Chilliwack might be something we tell our kids and grandkids about.