Southwestern Nova Scotia seeing driest weather since 1880

Paul d'Entremont can't haul water to keep homeowners' wells full fast enough.

He owns Paul's Water Service in Lower West Pubnico, N.S., which is near Yarmouth. Next to firefighters, he may be one of the busiest people working these days.

The southwestern part of Nova Scotia saw its driest June and July since 1880, says CBC meteorologist Kalin Mitchell. The region normally gets just shy of 200 millimetres of rain during those two months. This year, Yarmouth County has only seen only 67 millimetres.

D'Entremont says people have been calling him one after the other to get water for their wells. He's been working from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. sometimes, delivering water to more than 10 houses a day.

"It's kind of overwhelming right now, but we try to keep up as long as we can," he told CBC's Maritime Noon.

D'Entremont sources his water from an aquifer in Lower West Pubnico. He says while its water level has gone down, he doesn't anticipate it will run dry.

'Drier than a burnt boot'

One of his customers is a nursery located just down the road.

"It's very dry, drier than a burnt boot," Alice d'Entremont, the owner of Ouest-Ville Perennials garden centre, told CBC's Maritime Noon.

She has about 10,000 pots of perennials she waters constantly just to keep them alive. To do that, she's had to bring in four loads of supplementary water for irrigation for the first time in her 22 years of business. The last load she received was almost 19,000 litres.

"If Mother Nature doesn't comply with us on the weekend, we are going to have to bring in more next week," she said. "We've never had such a water issue before."

Rain is in the forecast

CBC meteorologist Kalin Mitchell says some relief is on the way for the region, both today and over the weekend.

A round of showers is forecast for the southwestern part of the province Friday afternoon and evening. Rain is also expected for Saturday night into Sunday.