Town of Antigonish orders residents to stop watering lawns, gardens

The Town of Antigonish, N.S., is ordering all town and area water utility customers to begin conserving water.

The order came into effect Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. and will remain until water levels at the James River Dam return to normal. The town's chief administrative officer Jeff Lawrence told CBC's Maritime Noon the water behind the dam is one metre below spilling.

"We've been in this position, mandatory water conservation, for two out of the past five years. It isn't completely uncommon," Lawrence said.

Watering lawns, trees, shrubs, flower beds and gardens are banned under the order that applies to all residential and commercial properties.

Customers are also being asked not to fill pools, wash down walkways, driveways or vehicles, the town stated in a tweet on Tuesday.

Anyone found breaking the rules could have their water service disconnected, the town said.

Lawrence said in his six years of working for the town, there's never been a time when anyone's water had to be disconnected.

"Generally the residents and businesses in the area have been very good at compliance," he said.

Lawrence said 25 to 40 millilitres of rain over a 24 hour period "would probably be sufficient to recharge the system to where we could move away from mandatory [orders]."

Dry period June to September

Generally speaking, Lawrence said there's less rain in the area from June to September, "so we're coming closer to the end of what would normally be our dry period."

Looking ahead to the future, Lawrence said the town is working with Municipality of the County of Antigonish to find supplemental water sources. He said a couple sources are promising and he expects drilling to confirm whether they are feasible could take place in the next year.

"As we move forward and as we see growth, we do know that we have to find additional supplementary sources to the James River Dam," Lawrence said.

John MacPherson, who runs Outback Car Wash in Antigonish, said a number of customers came through ahead of the order taking effect Wednesday afternoon.

"It really affects us. We have to shut the whole place down because we depend on water. I have three people hired here. Do I send them home? Do I keep paying them? It's just tough — especially after COVID," MacPherson said.

Wendy Kraglund-Gauthier, an Antigonish resident, said it's been a particularly dry summer.

"We have just not had enough rain this year, it's been overly hot, overly dry. We've not seen this stretch of no rain in this area for year," she said.

"I think when we're looking at water conservation, people don't like the word 'mandate' as we've seen in the last two years  but I think it expresses the seriousness of where we are with the state of the water in our province."