Dawn-Euphemia can’t supply the water needed for a new 40-acre greenhouse. At least not yet.
Greenhill Produce was ready to start building the first phase of the 40-acre greenhouse project at the corner of Oil Heritage Road and Edys Mills Line when engineers voiced concern there may not be enough water pressure to feed the new greenhouse and the rest of the municipality. The Ministry of the Environment says 40 pounds per square inch of pressure must be maintained throughout the municipality at all times.
After four days of testing, engineers determined that wouldn’t happen if Greenhill would need about 7.5 litres per second for its pepper plant according to Mayor Al Broad.
“The pressure in some areas of Dawn-Euphemia would be well below the ministry guidelines,” says Broad.
An engineer is looking at the issue now to see what exactly should be done and what the price tag would be. Broad says the main issue is the size of the water pipelines feeding the municipality.
“Our system is made up of mostly four and six inch pipeline,” says Broad. “At the time, it was all we could afford. Looking back on it, maybe some should have been oversized but money was tight and we did what we could,” says the mayor.
“The only way to possibly fix it is putting in new, bigger lines from Enniskillen or possibly Petrolia… to service the amount of water that is required.”
That, Broad says, will be expensive. “It will be huge – I don’t know what the number will be but it will be big.” Broad says the engineer may have a solution and cost by the end of October.
Owners of Greenhill had said they were running out of time to work on the project this year and said “if we can’t get the water, we likely will find another site.”
Broad wants to work with Greenhill to find a solution but if the Edys Mills project was not moving ahead, he wouldn’t want to invest millions in new pipeline in the hope another project would come along.