Sand Cove residents skeptical of city efforts to halt erosion

Work is set to begin this week in an effort to slow land slippage in Saint John's west end, but local residents remain skeptical it will solve their problems.

Several homes in the Sand Cove neighbourhood have been damaged by coastal erosion. An engineering report says the seaside neighbourhood is losing 0.46 metres per year. The ground movement is also threatening Sand Cove Road and other infrastructure in the area.

• Saint John wants answers on Sand Cove Road in 8 weeks

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At the beginning of April, city council opted to reallocate $158,087 from the budget to pay for the installation of pore water pressure relief wells. Fundy Engineering will begin making arrangements to drill a row of boreholes across the area this week, said city spokeswoman Lisa Caissie said in an email.

"We believe this will allow some of the water to run off," Caissie said.

The hope is that by removing water from the soil, the pressure that leads to the slides will be reduced.

Morton McAllister has lived in the neighbourhood since 1939, well before the erosion problems began. Standing next to an existing borehole, he remained skeptical that adding more will change anything.

"I don't think that's going to solve the problem," he said.

We expected to have a pleasant retirement. Willa Mavis

McAllister, like many others in the area, believes the only way to solve the land slippage is by putting in a breakwater.

"In the '80s they put a breakwater here in the graveyard, the graveyard's never moved," he said, pointing at the boulders below the Holy Cross Cemetery. "All we want is to fill that gap in."

It's unlikely McAllister will see a breakwater installed any time soon. With no room in the capital budget, a permanent solution is unavailable until next year.

Caissie said once the drilling is complete, an assessment of the results will be presented to council. McAllister wonders how many reports the city is going to commission before solving the problem for good.

"We've done four studies now," said McAllister, who thinks the money for those could have rectified the issue.

Willa Mavis owns a building two doors down from where the slippage has forced the city to close a lane on Sand Cove Rd. Standing at the edge of where the erosion has carved out her property, Mavis pointed up to the exposed roots of a maple tree. The tree now sits precariously at the edge of a growing cliff,

"If it happened to go down in another Hurricane Arthur," she said, "it would take a lot of the bank with it."

Mavis, like others in the neighbourhood, thinks the relief wells are a waste of time and money. The problems she believes only began when the area was linked to the municipal water and sewage. That, she believes, is why the city has an obligation to pay for a proper solution.

She says the issue has caused an unnecessary amount of stress for her and her husband.

"We expected to have a pleasant retirement," she said. "This is such a negative issue in our life."