Lunenburg’s waste water system is still feeling the effects of Hurricane Dorian.
Since the storm, the town’s wastewater plant has been offline and pumping untreated wastewater directly into the harbour.
But town officials says some progress has been made, and now some systems in the plant are back online, providing partial treatment to water.
Mayor Rachel Bailey says staff is working hard to bring the system back online, but currently there is no timeline for when that will be.
“Parts are coming in and pieces of the system are being re-assembled and tested as we speak,” she said, “The work is ongoing, so I’m sure we will be back up to full treatment in the near future.”
Heavy rain waters and storm surges dumped a bunch of extra water into the system, causing it to become overpowered and shut down.
Bailey says the town has never dealt with damage like this from a storm.
“This has been an unprecedented situation.” she said.
“Hurricanes and natural disasters are pretty unpredictable, and we really didn’t forsee this kind of water intrusion, so certainly we will learn from this.”
Bailey says the town will look back on this experience to form preventative measures in the future. Meanwhile, residents should avoid contact with the harbour water, and avoid putting materials that are hard to treat down their drains.
Reported by: Cody McEachern
Twitter: @CodyInHiFi
E-mail: mceachern.cody@radioabl.ca
