PotashCorp's announcement it will close its brand new Picadilly mine near Sussex is not the only blow to the region.

The company has confirmed once it receives environmental approval — possibly as early as this spring— it will allow its older, original mine at Penobsquis to fill with water.

Since the late 1990s, mine workers have had to pump continuously to keep that mine from flooding and fighting that flood has become an industry of its own.

As often as 100 times a day, trucks pull into the yard at the Penobsquis mine to fill up with brine, pumped from deep in the mine where it leaks in at a rate of 4,500 litres per minute.

The trucks then make the 80 kilometre trip to Saint John to dump the heavily salted water into the Bay of Fundy.

It's a round-the-clock, seven days a week business for 43 drivers.

That's just for the water that cannot be handled by a brine pipeline to the bay that was built years ago.

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Caption: Jack Liddle says his well was affected by the water that poured into the potash mine. (CBC)

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Shortly after water began to pour into the mine, some people living nearby began to lose water in their wells.

Around 2004, the water in Jack Liddle's well turned muddy, sometimes disappearing entirely.

"It just kept gradually going. We ran out of water ... I drilled a new well and roughly a month or six weeks [later], that was dry," said Liddle.

Liddle says PotashCorp started bringing in water for them, though eventually the province built a community water system which opened in 2009.

Liddle, and others near the mine, are hooked up to that water system and PotashCorp picks up the tab for the water bills.

Despite the earlier problem, Jack Liddle has nothing but praise for the company.

"They've had a lot of expense with water and stuff, you know, trouble. But they did a lot of good for the community," said Liddle.

According to Jennifer Graham, spokesperson for the department of environment and local government, a study was done looking into what caused the loss of drinking water.

"The study was not conclusive regarding the specific cause of the problems with water supplies," Graham said via email.

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Caption: Since the late 1990s, mine workers have had to pump continuously to keep the old mine from flooding and fighting that flood has become an industry of its own. (CBC)

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It's not known if the water table in Penobsquis will return to normal once the mine is fully flooded. However, there is no going back as most of the wells in the area were filled with cement when the new water system was installed.

Graham also said PotashCorp is expected to register a "decommissioning project for the old Penobsquis mine" for an environmental impact assessment in the spring.

She said the assessment registration document would include a "comprehensive Environmental Protection Plan consisting of various monitoring plans, such as surface water monitoring and ground water monitoring, as well as a plan for the decommissioning of structures on the site and a hazardous materials survey of the underground mine area."