By Mary Beth Corcoran – The Chatham Voice – Special to the Sydenham Current
Another family in North Kent is without water.
Jessica and Paul Brooks are blaming pile-driving activity less than one kilometre from their home on Brook Line for clogging their well pump with sediment and no water.
The Brooks have lived in the house for five years and said they have had no problems with their well before last Friday night.
At a press conference at their home Wednesday, the Brooks and members of Water Wells First (WWF) spoke about the ongoing well problems that the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) officials are calling a “coincidence.”
This latest round with London and Windsor officials from the MOECC has left WWF members and the Brooks’ more frustrated with the refusal of ministry staff to collect, not only water samples, but the large amount of sediment clearly visible in the sediment sampling station the Brooks and other well owners have installed on their well pressure tanks.
“There is pile driving right behind (the house), about 750 metres away on Thursday and Friday and Paul called me Friday night and said at 10:30 p.m. when he was trying to shower, there was no water,” said WWF spokesperson Kevin Jakubec.
“When we went down and looked at the sediment traps that we recommend… and they were plugged with sediments.”
Jessica said they called the Ministry of the Environment and they came out yesterday (Tuesday) to take samples and “at that time the water was still running after we kept cleaning the filters out every six
hours.”
They would not, however, take a sample of the sediment even when Jessica offered to let them collect the sample themselves.
The Brooks have been collecting and documenting with photos and time of collection, as sediment is considered a contaminant, Jakubec said, in the Environmental Protection Act.
“I asked them at that time if the water was fit for use and she refused to answer that because it had to go for analysis but you could tell it was cloudy,” Jessica said.
Jakubec said the MOE provincial official was not following the Ontario Water Resources Act and not
upholding the Environmental Protection Act.
“It’s very clear that Sec. 15 of the EPA obligates the provincial officer to assess and determine if the well owner asks to determine if the water is fit or unfit. Why doesn’t the provincial officer who comes to the site not know her own duties?” Jakubec questioned.
The Brooks have already spent $4,000 in well testing since February of this year, and water was “crystal clear” before the pile driving began, Jessica said.
The family was using jugs of water they purchased to brush their teeth and drink from, but with three teenagers in the house, weren’t able to shower or flush their toilets by Wednesday.
“I have kids coming back from corn detasseling that aren’t going to able to shower and I’m thinking of taking them to Kingston Park to run through the splash pad just to rinse off a little bit,” Jessica said.
“I have three teens; that means dishes and laundry every day. I can’t run my appliances. I can’t even flush the toilets.”
An official from Samsung, who is a partner in the North Kent Wind farm project, was to meet with the Brooks family Wednesday afternoon to arrange to get them water as per the REA permit agreement in case of well issues.
The Brooks said they are leery of trusting the wind company to do right by them and want the MOECC officials to monitor the situation and the way the wind farm handles their complaint.
“Someone has to oversee it. You can’t have the one doing the harm and making restitution without some oversight,” she added.
“So if they are doing the damage and to fix it is going to cost them some money, of course I don’t trust them. It doesn’t make sense for us to trust them.”
Jakubec said that with the Brooks being the second well affected after near-by pile-driving including the Pumphrey’s who have had similar issues, “only a fool would think there is not a link between pile-driving, vibrations and impacts on our water wells.”
Watch for more on this story.
– Photo credit: Mary Beth Corcoran
