Heather Wright/The Independent

Dawn-Euphemia wants to figure out just how much water is available for new businesses to expand.
Public Works Superintendent Paul Dalton told councillors Monday he heard from an entrepreneur who is planning to build in the community but needs a commitment of 350 cubic meters of water a day.
Dalton says that’s not a high water usage for some communities, but it could be a problem in Dawn-Euphemia.
The township buys its water from Enniskillen Township, which in turn buys the water from Petrolia. Dawn-Euphemia is allotted 1,309 cubic meters a day – more than enough for residents, even on a hot summer day.
But Dalton says if the township has a number of people looking to use larger amounts of water, it could quickly become a problem.
“How many 350 meters a day do we want to give away?
“We could easily be halfway to that at any one point in the very near future, just with what’s here right now,” says Dalton.
Several years ago, a greenhouse developer had to scrap a massive plan because the township simply didn’t have the water supply without building larger pipelines from Petrolia’s system.
“We should have a real good look at what we can supply and what the potential is,” says Dalton.
“If I do a quick kind of synopsis of our municipality, we’ve got enough water, probably, and would be just about all utilized if we supplied water to each resident in the municipality; we would have not that much left to spare.”
Dalton suggested and council agreed to use a local engineer to look at what the usage would be should the whole municipality have water, and what would be available for development.
Councillor Mark McGuire was among those who liked the idea.
“We’re sitting here with our pants down when somebody comes in asking if there is enough water, we should know yes or no,” says McGuire.
“Or maybe we should be doing something different to get more water.”