By Nathalie Sturgeon, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Courier
The engineering firm working on a new water supply for Blacks Harbour says it has developed a water-flushing plan that may provide some short-term improvements in the region’s water quality.
Englobe made a presentation to Eastern Charlotte in mid-November amid ongoing pressure from some members council to move quickly to establish a new source of water.
Since June, the company has developed a main-flushing plan, which forces water through the pipes at high speed to clean out built-up sediment, dirt, and scale from inside the pipes.
Water in Blacks Harbour and Beaver Harbour has been discoloured for years. Several months ago, Coun. Adam Hatt brought in filtered water that remained yellow despite treatment.
“We think this is one of the major key items since June that we were able to put a plan and nail this down that provides improvement, short term improvements, to the water quality,” said Pierre Plourde with Englobe.
The water supply and the associated infrastructure are owned by a private company operating in Blacks Harbour– Connors Brothers, a fish-packing and processing facility. Eastern Charlotte has been working to take over the supply since at least 2023.
Several residents spoke out in June and urged the municipality to move quickly to address the water-quality issues.
“It’s disgusting, and how we haven’t dealt with this yet blows my mind,” Blacks Harbour resident John Paul Blanchard said in June. “We’re getting misinformation from people around us. We’re trying to make up our own solutions to what’s going on.”
Becky McNally, the owner of The Kitchen in Blacks Harbour, said she’d lost $20,000 in sales during a boil-water order in the community.
Both Englobe and the municipality have struggled with the legality of private property –especially areas needed for exploration.
Plourde told the council that Englobe had met with operators of the water supply, municipal staff, and the private sector to gain a better understanding of how the system works.
“Some of the key findings right now [are that] the operators are following the provincial requirements, so we have an approval to operate in place, so that is being followed,” he told the council.
He said it found that some levels of manganese, iron, and turbidity are slightly above normal guidelines. It said the company believes the manganese and iron are coming into contact with chlorine being left in the pipes through the cleaning process and it is leaving deposits.
“Right now, this is what we believe might be going on in your system right now, where we have brown water,” he said, adding treating the water would cost millions of dollars and isn’t feasible at the moment.
“We’re adding chlorine in the first reservoir, right,” he said. “There is that chemical reaction that starts to happen in this initial reservoir. Now you’re moving that water through your system, through your distribution system.”
Plourde explained that a certain velocity is needed to move the particles that settle in the pipe, and it isn’t something typically achieved during day-to-day operations.
“[The] normal demand, you don’t really move that water that fast in your pipe, so what happens is that everything stays there,” he said.
He said that this is where a very specific flushing plan comes into the picture.
Eastern Charlotte Mayor John Craig said the water quality continues to be the top priority for the council.
He lives in Blacks Harbour and deals with the issue as well. Englobe, he explained, has determined that the transmission line needs to be replaced.
Craig said the engineering firm is working on costing the replacement, at which point the municipality could seek support from other levels of government.
The next step would be for the council to form a committee to work on the issue.
“It’d be sort of a communication committee where they can communicate what’s going on better to the public and let people know and try to get the information out there,” he said. “We have to stay on top of it, and we have to keep pushing and pushing to make sure this gets done.”
