WATCH ABOVE: Residents living in the north-east edge of Vaudreuil-Dorion have been forced to boil their water for years because of wells that have gone bad and some residents say the city has been neglecting them. Sarah Volstad reports.
VAUDREUIL – For 25 years, Louise Brasseur has lived in the small community of Domaine-en-Haut. And for 25 years, she has been without drinkable tap water.
“It smells and it’s not very nice because it’s all funny,” said the 79-year-old.
Frequent paper notices have turned into weekly phone calls from the city, reminding residents of the boil water advisory still in effect. The water in her bath tub is brown. Twice a week, her husband drives to the neighboring town of St-Lazare to collect clean water for cooking and drinking.
Down the road, Jean-Paul Gravel unloads the water jugs that he filled at a friend’s house in town. A resident of the area for 35 years, he’s given up on believing the city will take action.
“I pay taxes to the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion,” he said. “In the center of town, when they redid Roche Boulevard, I pay taxes for that. But they don’t want to pay taxes for us on top of the hill. I don’t know why; it’s as if we weren’t part of the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion.”
We spoke to many people within the community of Domaine-en-Haut, some who have lived there for decades, others who just recently arrived. All agreed that they didn’t know about the boil water advisory when they moved in.
Domaine-en-Haut isn’t the only Vaudreuil neighborhood to have water woes. A year and a half ago, the community of Hudson-Acres was notified that their water wasn’t up to standard.
“They explained to us that the sleeve that goes down to the well had a puncture in it and that, I guess, some kind of bacteria or whatever was penetrating into the water, hence not being drinkable,” explained Paul Cloutier, a resident of Hudson-Acres.
Unlike Domaine-en-Haut, the city delivers large water jugs to residents of Hudson-Acres free of charge — a temporary fix that has been in place for roughly one year.
Cloutier said the city is looking at two permanent solutions to the problem.
“One was to rebuild the well close to the one existing, or connecting onto the city water,” he said.
The latter would lead to a yearly surcharge of $400 per household.
The city of Vaudreuil-Dorion wasn’t available to comment, but its website says it’s applying for subsidies to finance the connection of both affected areas to the municipal water system.
The question remains: when?
“At my age, I’ll likely die before receiving adequate water and sewage services,” said Gravel.
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