When the sun hit his house in the center of Nueva Scotia last weekend, Brian Wilson’s teenage daughter turned on the tap, but no water came out.
“That led me to start investigating what the cause was and we determined when opening the hatch to the well that we were empty,” Wilson said about his home in Stewiacke, NS, approximately 70 kilometers northwest of Halifax.
“Then I thought, we will simply turn to the cistern. It has always been able to supply us during dry times. But we determined that it was also empty.”
The Wilson are not alone.
Throughout the province, wells and deposits are drying and the municipalities are implementing conservation measures in the middle of an endless drought in sight.
Wilson said he called several water delivery companies that operate in their rural area, but did not have much luck.
“One of them was so supported that they have stopped receiving calls and … the only supplier we hope to appear told us that it would be at least a week before they could reach us,” he told us, “he said,” he said Information Tomorrow New Scotland.
“Life hit us.”
Delivery trucks are working more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, just to keep up with the desperate calls of water. Preston Mulligan has the story.
Without running water at home, the family was forced to leave. They went to their camp about 45 minutes.
“At least now we have drinking water and we can shower,” he said.
The city of Stewiabke has implemented water conservation measures that do not include irrigation of gardens, caes or trees, without vehicles or washing houses, and do not fill pools or sprinklers.
The area obtains its water mainly from the St. Andrews River, which is at the lowest level that has been since the officials began monitoring it 10 years ago, according to the city.
Cao Marc Seguin said the city is monitoring the river every day.
“We have contingency plans instead if the river levels are not enough to provide our water demands,” he said.
“Contingency plans would imply having to transport water to supply those systems, but we are not in a stage where we have to look at that.”
Mandatory water conservation measures are also in their place in Annapolis and Antigoníse County. The regional municipality of Halifax has made conservation measures voluntary for now.
Water conservation notices in Stewiabke, Stellarton, West Hants and the municipality of the Yarmouth and Queens district have been issued.
At the southwest end of the province, the sound of the falling clothes are heard all day to a laundry in Yarmouth.
Helen Muise, who works at KD Wash and Dry Laundry, said people whose wells have dried are going to the business to wash their clothes.
“Our washing machine and dryer do not stop. They are full from the moment we open in the morning at 8 in the morning until we close at 6 pm,” said Muise, and added that some customers even travel up to 100 kilometers of unidirectional from places like Shelburne, Barrington, Digby and Clare.
According to the provincial government, 46 percent of New York’s scotians depend mainly on the groundwater of excavated or perforated wells for their private water supply.
Gordon Check, a main hydrogenologist from the Department of Environment and Climate Change in the province, said there is a natural cycle in groundwater and a natural decrease in water levels every year during the summer, followed by a recharge period in autumn and winter.
“It is a fairly natural condition, however, this year seems to be particularly dry,” he said Morning Cape Breton information.
He said that people with shallow wells should try to keep water using only the necessary water for daily purposes.
In the long term, those who experience frequent water shortage might consider deepening their well or replacing a shallow well with a deeper drilled well, Check said. Installing a water storage container as a cistern could also be an option, he added.
The province said that seven provincial parks provide drinking water and showers between 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm daily. They are:
• Blomidon
• Ellenwood Lake
• Graves Island
• Lake goalkeepers
• Rissers Beach
• The islands
• Valleyview
CBC’s meteorologist Ryan Soddon said there is not much help in the forecast. He says that the next opportunity for showers is not until the end of next week.
Soddon said that the last time the province saw a generalized substantial rain was June 7 and 8.
The last time that New Scotland had substantial rain throughout the province was in early June. The CBC meteorologist Ryan Soddon says that our next possibility of rain will probably not reach the end of next week.
Dry conditions have also led the province to ban fires and activities open in the forest, such as walking, camping, fishing and conducting ATVs. Camping in the camps is still allowed.
