Community well proposal offers solutions

Proposal involves unused well at NCSS Shelburne

The discovery of an unused drilled well at the NSCC Shelburne Campus on the Lake John Road could possibly serve as a water resource for the community.

“The Shelburne Campus well water has the potential to serve as a community water supply,” reads an NSCC Shelburne Campus Community Well Project proposal presented to Shelburne Municipal Council on May 11 by SEED (South End Environmental Injustice Society) volunteers Louise Lindsay and Louise Delilse.

“The water can be sent offsite to a dispensing station to eliminate public traffic flow on Campus,” the proposal reads. “It could be operated on a costrecovery basis as a registered water supply with Nova Scotia Environment with operation and maintenance assumed, for example, by the Shared Services Team of Eastern Shelburne County or other entity.”

The abandoned well on the NSCC Shelburne Campus was once used to support aquaculture programming. NSCC Applied Research realized its existence several years ago during the NSCC’s involvement in a residential water quality study, which began in 2018, in the disadvantaged, mostly Black community of South Shelburne.

“SEED has been working with the Town of Shelburne trying to find a location for a community well, but this came up as an existing well that has a good yield,” said Lindsay. “Why waste your money drilling a well with your fingers crossed in the hopes you’re going to get a good one when you have one that looks like a good one that you can spend your money developing into a distribution point.”

According to data, the well has a test rate of 40 imperial gallons per minute (260,000 litres per day).

“The test rate of 260,000 litres per day is a very substantial yield for a drilled well in the region where yields are often very low and commonly insufficient even for a single dwelling,” reads the proposal, which says the industrial size eight-inch well diameter can support a high well yield.

“The campus raw well water chemistry has been tested by an accredited laboratory verifying there is no arsenic, which is common in the area. In addition, a portable water treatment system designed and commissioned on site by NSCC Applied Research has proven the water can be treated to satisfy Canadian Drinking Water Quality Guidelines.”

The NSCC is partnering with SEED on the project. Lindsay said NSCC is extremely supportive in developing this community well, adding they also have a large property where the distribution point could be located.

“Right now, we’re in the process of getting a plan of what we need to have a community well,” she said. “We will be meeting with the minister of the Environment, getting the requirements from the province for a community well and also funding sources to build infrastructure needed if the well tests out and it’s acceptable as a community well.”

SEED committed $25,000 to the development of a community well project announced by actor/director Elliot Page in 2019. Page also pledged to provide up to $5,000 annually for its operation and maintenance in perpetuity after learning of the need in the community after he had directed a documentary called ‘There’s Something in the Water.’

Page has reiterated funding support for any project that SEED and the community deems suitable to relieve water security stress.

A community well would not only help out with ongoing summer drought conditions, it would also help residents with water quality issues.

Of 23 wells sampled during the water quality study conducted by the NSCC in South Shelburne, 20 of the dug wells tested positive for total coliform bacteria, signifying unsanitary water unfit for human consumption. Nine of the dug wells tested positive for E. coli, indicating recent fecal contamination.

Recurring drought conditions have affected well water supplies in southwestern Nova Scotia since 2016. Climate change modeling for the region predicts conditions will worsen. “Prevalent use of shallow dug wells in the region contributes to their tendency to go dry in the summer and fall and makes them susceptible to contamination also,” reads the project proposal.

The ask from SEED to Shelburne Municipal Council is for the municipality to manage the well, with the assistance of the annual $5,000 contribution from Page for operation and maintenance.

“Right now, we’re looking at getting the well cleaned, tested, and getting the required testing that has to be done if you have a public water supply. The province has lots of regulations on the testing,” said Lindsay.

“We could use this well as a pilot project and put another somewhere, and another one somewhere else,” added Delilse. “We’re doing the groundwork here for the next one.”

Lindsay noted there are some other wells in and around Shelburne that aren’t being used.

SEED is also looking at the possibilities of further developing the project, through the use of a container or bladder that would fit inside a well and remain there “so you could put water into the well and use it as your normal household system,” said Lindsay. “It’s not a sophisticated thing.”

Municipal council will be considering the request from SEED, accompanied by a staff report, at a future meeting.

“Hearing the comments around the table I would say council is quite excited to partner” on the project, said Warden Penny Smith. “I can see a phased project if council wants to participate.”

Said Delilse, “The more partners we have, the more we can accomplish.”