By Mark Squibb
St. Shotts mayor Loretta Molloy is hopeful that three wells dug using recently announced government funding to the tune of $239,190 will help the community address its water woes.
Molloy, who noted she is extremely pleased the town received the funding, explained St. Shotts has a groundwater water supply, and that in the springtime, it becomes murky.
“We have been on a boil order here for 10 or 12 years and we have not come off that boil order,” said Molloy. “In the wintertime, when the dam is skimmed over with ice, you get good, clear quality drinking water. But, by the time the testing would be done, and we get our clearance to come off the boil order, we would be back into the spring, there would be no ice on the water, and the water would be discoloured, and the bacteria count would be high. The main problem we have with our water is that where it’s a ground water source, any time we have any amount of rain the mud will be stirred up in the bottom of the dam and our water will be brown. It’s not fit even to take a shower in, let alone anything else…. You have to see the colour of the water, it’s not just a little muddy — it’s mud, in the summertime, when we have rain. There’s no way you can use it. It stains your tubs, your toilets. It’s unbelievable.”
Back in 2019, Molloy said, council began to get serious about getting the water problem addressed.
“What we did was we ungraded the water mains and the water filtration system,” said Molloy. “We upgraded all the lines going to individual houses to make sure there were no leaks. So, we updated all the infrastructure at the time. And then two years ago, once we got all that done, we held a public meeting and we said to people in the community, ‘Okay, do you want us to proceed to see if we can get some type of well dug to see if we can get good, clear water running from our taps, water that will be suitable for bathing , washing clothes, and, above all, drinking?’ And the town said, ‘Yes, 100 percent, go for it.’”
Following that meeting, the Town hired Stantec to do an assessment as a cost of about $9,000.
“Stantec suggested that, looking at the topography of the land, it would be suitable and advisable for us to go ahead with trying to get wells dug,” said Molloy.
To that end, the town successfully applied for funding to drill three wells.
“We dotted our I’s and crossed our T’s by having Stantec do the initial assessment, at the town’s cost, and then we put in a fairly good proposal, and were lucky enough to be accepted, and so now this is were we are,” said Molloy, adding the plan is to have the wells drilled by the fall.
Once the wells are dug, flow tests and water quality tests will be conducted. Should the results prove favorable, Molloy said, council will apply for an engineering assessment and, finally, hook the well system into the town’s water supply.
Molloy said that the funding will cover the cost of drilling the wells, but not the cost of hooking the wells up to the town’s infrastructure at a later time, which will require additional government funding.
“I don’t think government would abandon us now, once they’ve given us this much money to get the testing done,” said Molloy. “At least I hope they wouldn’t.”
Molloy has served one term as mayor and two terms as councillor and said that as long as she has been on council water quality has been a concern.
“This has been a long time in the making, but this community has never given up,” said Molloy. “It’s been a long road, and previous councils have worked so hard to get the infrastructure upgraded and repaired. We’re only a small community, but everybody works together very, very well.”
