Water back on at Victoria Beach, albeit low pressure, says reeve

The water is back on for cottagers at Victoria Beach, but the local reeve says the pressure will continue to be low as repairs are made.

Crews were working all weekend to fix the water plant, which wouldn't go online when workers went to fire it up for the season, said RM of Victoria Beach Reeve Brian Hodgson.

"The boys were diligently working on the system, trying to get it up and operating," said Hodgson Monday evening.

"They managed to find out what the problem was this afternoon, and the water is, I'm going to say it's flowing, at a very low pressure right now, while they find all the leaks that are there around the beach, but the water is on."

It could be several days before the water pressure returns to normal as crews fix leaks around the beach, said Hodgson. 

Hodgson blamed a lack of "plans or specifications for that plant on site" as the reason for the delay in diagnosing the problem.

"The fellow that we brought in to get everything running, who was an expert in the field, just shook his head said, 'My God, what do I do?' And he finally found the critical valve that had to be turned on and that's when it started."

However, one of the former chief administrative officers, Raymond Moreau, said all the plans used to be in binders in the plant's office, though Hodgson said that's no longer the case.

Instead, Moreau blamed a lack of skilled workers when the municipality went to turn the plant on for the season. The RM usually has at least four certified technicians for the plant, he said.

However, two have quit, one was fired and one is on stress leave, he said.

There has been ongoing controversy in the community after the RM recently fired its fire chief. Many volunteer firefighters and first responders threatened to quit if the chief was not reinstated.

Acting Fire Chief Wolf Kraft said there were small lineups of between two to five cars all weekend at the fire hall as people filled up their water.

"I do know that a lot of people didn't come out because of the lack of water," he said. 

"A lot of people decided to stay in Winnipeg. I was in the bakery this afternoon and the store. They both said their sales are about half of last year so that was a pretty good indication."

Kraft said the Jets games this weekend also may have kept a few people from coming.

Missed opening weekend

Cottager Tammy MacIntosh said she missed opening her cottage at Victoria Beach on the May long weekend for the first time in 58 years, and expressed concern about the lack of official updates from the RM.

"They're not giving any information at the municipality, so I wasn't going to drive all the way out there and open up the cottage" to find there was no water, she said.

Hodgson said the community didn't want to publish notifications guessing at the water's status but rather wait until they were certain.

About 1,200 properties were affected by the plant breakdown. Information about the water situation from the RM was last posted on its website on Friday, May 18.

People who did come down seemed to handle things fine, said Hodgson.

"I was down [at the fire hall] a couple of times, very orderly. Everybody was talking, just enjoying the weather. 

"I didn't receive any phone calls, not one."

The lack of available water also prompted the RM to keep its fire ban for the weekend, despite some rain falling, said Kraft.

"Obviously, without running water we couldn't really have open fires and fireworks without people having access to water at their homes," he said.