Weyburn water main break shuts down city

It’s nothing urgent, it’s just the inconvenience.

Wednesday morning, people in Weyburn and the surrounding area woke up to find themselves without water. The result of a massive overnight water main break.

Around 1:00 a.m. CT on March 28, a water main on Coteau Avenue broke, and city crews started excavating the site at seven o clock.

“We were able, within a couple of hours, to have that break isolated and under control, but at the same time our water reservoir, treated water, at the water treatment plant, was severely depleted, so as a result we had to shut our distribution service down,” explained Claude Morin, Weyburn’s public works superintendent.

The near empty reservoir forced schools and businesses to close, even postponing surgeries at Weyburn General Hospital. Despite the lack of water, the emergency room stayed open.

Weyburn’s reservoir serves roughly 14,000 people, but the town’s reservoir can only hold enough water for 9,000. It’s something Weyburn is looking to improve.

“It’s quite a bit undersized,” Weyburn mayor Marcel Roy stated frankly. “We are in the process of building a new reservoir that will service a community of 20k population. Finally, both the provincial and federal grants came through and we can proceed with the project,” Roy said.

Roy added that depleting the reservoir was an eye-opening experience, noting how lucky they were that a large fire didn’t occur at the same time. He reaffirmed that with the new reservoir, it’s unlikely that they’ll run into this situation again.

Outside of Weyburn, some 300 residents were affected, including a number of farmers.

“Stats Canada dictates a family of four will use 220 gallons in a day, now if you have 100 gallons and you know you’re going to be out of water you can easily get through a day, or even two days or more,” Ron Fellner, the manager of the Weyburn Utility Board explained.

The Weyburn Utility Board runs water lines from the city supply to rural customers, all of whom have 100-gallon holding tanks. Among the boards, a handful of customers are farmers who use much more water than the average family.

“We have one dairy on the water, we have a few of our subscribers that raise livestock, so they’ve all been identified and they’ll have to turn their water systems off. If a cow doesn’t drink now, she can wait a couple hours of nibble on a little snow,” Fellner said.

The city was able to reactivate the water supply shortly after 1:30 this afternoon and are refilling the reservoir. A cautionary boil water advisory is in effect, and will likely remain throughout this week and into the next until the city can test the water supply.

Weyburn is still advising residents to use water sparingly and cautioned that there is the potential for a few minor water main leaks while they flush any air out of the system.