New water line brings better pressure, service to Sherbrooke

The water is flowing cleaner, flowing with better pressure and with far fewer interruptions to services in Sherbrooke, thanks to the completion of a waterline replacement carried out by the Municipal of the District of St. Mary’s.

The project, which consisted of the replacement of a water line, was completed at the end of June, and was the product of work that began in fall of 2017.

Marvin Macdonald, CAO for the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s, said the difference the new main makes is already evident in the fewer incidences of leaks, the need to use fewer chemicals, and the pumps being used less – resulting in lower power costs at the plant.

"We’re not repairing leaks all the time anymore," Macdonald said. "It’s great."

"The project involved 2,300 meters of water main – mostly four-inch, but on some side streets, it was three-inch water mains – and service ladders," Macdonald said.

Work on the main stopped around December, due to winter conditions, but resumed again in May.

Macdonald said the idea to replace the water main was a combination of an opportunity through the Clean Water and Waste Water Program offering funding, and a litany of repair issues.

The project received 50 per cent funding from the federal government, and 25 per cent funding from the provincial government – while the District was responsible for subsidizing the rest of the project.

"We were having a lot of issues that were hard to detect, and it was costing a fair amount of money (to do repairs)," Macdonald said, noting it made more sense just to revamp the whole water main instead of struggling to deal with a multitude of problems that were not easily detected or dealt with.

The project ran into some slight cost overruns, with the District of St. Mary’s encountering some boulders in the ground that were anticipated to be lower than they actually work, in the geotechnical study carried out for the project.

Tender for the replacement was awarded to CBCL Ltd., a Halifax-based firm, in Oct. 2017. Work started around the last week of that month.