Water problems on Ellsworth Avenue
Area residents worried about safety in event of a fire.
In the aftermath of the fire at the former St. Agnes School, some residents are concerned about the water volume in the area.
According to residents, water volume has been an issue for many years.
“We’ve noticed it,” says Alex MacDougall who lives a few house up from the fire site. “A couple of times over the past couple of years the water pressure was so low we didn’t have enough water for even a shower.”
Sharon and Eckie McNeil agree. They live up the road and say they can’t figure out why their water runs stronger in some parts of the house than others.
“My bathroom water is always good but not my kitchen,” explains Sharon. “It’s always bad and when the washer is going it’s worse.”
“There was a broken line once, and we had no water at all,” Eckie adds.
During the fire, the same thing happened — the McNeils had no water.
“I heard a bang so I thought I should go check it out,” she recalls. “So I went to hop in the shower and there was no water.”
Laurie Rochester also had no water while the firefighters were battling the blaze.
“At first I didn’t know about the fire so I was going around checking all the pipes in the house,” she says. “When I knew about the fire, I thought that could be why, but I didn’t think that would mean I’d have no water at all.”
The mother of two says they lost water around 10 a.m. and it came back between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. For a while, they could only get water in the basement and it was a muddy, brown colour.
“It was really only enough water to brush your teeth,” she says.
“It’s not good, especially when you have two little kids under two. You want to know you have clean water.”
However, according to municipal officials, residents shouldn’t be concerned about the water volume in the area much longer.
“A very large structure fire like that, any water system would be taxed,” says Greg Penny, manager of water operations for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Water Utility. “The infrastructure in that area was put in in the 1930s. The water line is smaller.”
While the line in the area is smaller, he says that affects firefighters more than residential homes and often water volume isn’t the reason people have poor water pressure coming from their taps.
“For some people, the issue is with their homes, not the water volume.”
According to Penny, there is no need for concern when it comes to having enough water in the area if a residential fire was to break out.
“The volume required to fight a huge structural fire is much more than a home. The pipes in the ground now are more than enough to deal with a residential fire,” he says.
“The firefighters were using more water to fight that fire than you could have imagined. You could turn on all the taps in New Waterford and never use as much water as they used to fight that fire.”
However, there is a water improvement plan for the area, starting within a few weeks. The water pipes are being upgraded along Ellsworth Avenue from six inches to 10 inches, which will give home owners a moderate improvement in water volume and firefighters access to the water flow they need.
This isn’t all the CBRM Water Utility is doing.
“Over the last three to four years we’ve actually been adding a lot to the New Waterford water supply system by increasing and replacing water mains from the New Victoria side, from Daley Road and New Victoria Highway right into town,” explains Penny.
“There’s been a concerted effort to replace a lot of the larger water mains in New Waterford over the last number of years.
“And the Ellsworth Avenue one will be added to that. We’re doing a water main on Roaches Road at the same time. All of these will have a dramatic increase (in water volume) for firefighting activity.”