Except for the designated potable drinking water faucets, water throughout our campground does not meet current Nova Scotia Environment water testing standards, due to elevated levels of manganese. Guests are advised not to use the water for drinking, preparing infant formulas, preparing juices and ice cubes, washing fruits and vegetables, cooking, dental hygiene or any other activity requiring human consumption. This is to be done until further notice. Boiling the water will not remove manganese.
Skin contact and all other uses (hand washing, bathing, etc…) are safe. Potable drinking water is available at designated faucets within the campground and bottled water is available at our office/canteen.
We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding. Let us know if you have any questions.
Ryan Murphy, Owner
Murphy’s Camping on the Ocean
More information
Prior to the latest revision to Nova Scotia Environment water testing standards, manganese had an aesthetic objective only. Our water has not changed, but the testing standard for manganese has increased. We are continuing to work toward a sustainable solution to meet this increased testing standard and also to better prepare our campground for the future. What are we doing about it? Keep reading to learn more.
Water Softener
The most common treatment for reducing elevated manganese is a water softener system. The problem with this approach in our circumstance is a lack of excess water supply needed to operate the system. Water softeners periodically “back flush” which requires a significant amount of water. Many of our returning guests know that we sometimes struggle with water quantity, and have to truck in water to meet our peak water demands during the dry summer months. We expect this trend to continue as the climate continues to change. Therefore, we needed to find a different solution; one which doesn’t decrease our available water supply.
Reverse Osmosis
We next investigated a sea water reverse osmosis system. This type of system would pull in ocean water and remove all contaminants turning it into potable drinking water. This type of system would provide us with an almost unlimited supply of water, but at the cost of using a lot of electricity to operate the high pressure pumps required for reverse osmosis to generate the quantity of water required. Unfortunately, our campground’s electrical infrastructure requires a significant upgrade before this would be feasible. While reverse osmosis still appears to be the correct approach for our situation, we have significant work to do to upgrade our electrical system before we can implement it.
Given the above reasons, we have therefore made the difficult decision to implement a temporary solution to provide potable water at select locations throughout the campground until such time that we are able to implement a complete solution to meet both the required water quality standards and also our water supply demands.