Granville Ferry's water still unsafe to drink as repairs on ruptured tank underway

People in Granville Ferry, N.S., are being told to pick up safe drinking water from the Annapolis Royal Fire Department after the community's holding tank ruptured last Wednesday.

"The water started gushing out the bottom of the tank," said Allan Parish, the warden of the Municipality of the County of Annapolis. "They got a patch for the leak, but it didn't work."

Parish said he doesn't know what caused the rupture, but engineers have been at the site and the county is expecting a report.

The tank was installed in 1995. County officials have switched over to older reservoirs but the water can only be used for washing and bathing.

David Dick, the municipal CAO, said it could take a month to repair the tank.

"You can imagine how hot it would be inside that tank with welding torches," said Dick. "To be safe, they are in for 20 minutes and coming out for 20 minutes."

The town of Annapolis Royal normally gets its drinking water from the Granville Ferry system, but switched over to another holding tank it owns in Lequille.

Town officials arranged to have water trucked in to refill the tank.

But Amery Boyer, the mayor of Annapolis Royal, said it was not a straightforward transfer.

Boyer said there is a dirt road that leads uphill to the Lequille tank and the trucks are too heavy.

"So we had to pump water from the water tank into a fire truck and then boost it into our tank," Boyer said.

Since there was a possibility of the water being contaminated in the transfer process, people in Annapolis Royal were told to boil the water for one minute, as a precaution.

Boyer said a new pump has been installed that should eliminate the need to boil water.

"So the fix is in, but we have to make sure it works first," said Boyer. "So we're looking towards the end of the week."