Halifax senior reaches 1 month without running water

HALIFAX – Fred Lordly says he wishes he had running water again, but instead he spent part of Monday morning preparing for possible rain.

Lordly, 82, who lives in South End Halifax near the North West Arm, had his municipal water service cut 30 days ago after he refused to replace a drainage pipe on his property. Since then, he’s been drinking bottled water, taking donations from neighbours and collecting as much rain water as he can.

Halifax Water says the solution is fairly simple.

“The problem is Mr. Lordly’s,” said James Campbell with the utility. “He has an illegal connection there and it’s a connection that’s been that way, since I believe the 1960s. So we’ve identified that there is a problem there. It’s up to Mr. Lordly to correct that problem.”

At issue is the cross-connection that was established when Lordly built the house originally.  It has been draining wastewater from Lordly’s property directly into the Northwest Arm for the better part of four decades. Campbell said crews identified it two years ago and they’ve been working with Lordly to try to correct it ever since.

Lordly took the issue to the utility’s regulator, the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board. It ruled in favor of Halifax Water, saying it was Lordly’s responsibility to fix the pipes on his property to re-establish a legal connection and stop the flow of raw sewage into the Arm.

Contractors have offered to help complete the work, but at this point Lordly says he wants Halifax Water to do it as a matter of principle.  Six homes along neighboring streets had the same cross-connection problem, however, and all chose to pay to have the work completed.

Halifax Water is aware of the optics, but says it can’t play favourites, and must ensure environmental and municipal regulations are being upheld.

“I have no doubt we’re taking a severe public hit for this,” Campbell said. “But the reality is we have someone who is breaking regulation, polluting the Northwest Arm with illegal wastewater and it’s our obligation to stop that.”

Lordly says the fight is far from over.

“I don’t know what I’m being punished for,” he said. “I’ll stay as long as I live, I’ll keep fighting.  Someone said ‘you can’t beat them’, well, I’ll die trying.”