Charlottetown to shift pumping downstream to conserve river

The Charlottetown water and sewer utility is adjusting where it extracts water from the Winter River watershed to try to improve flow in the waterway.

Utility manager Richard MacEwen said the plan is to move pumping downstream.

"Anything that we can shift downstream will have a benefit upstream," said MacEwen.

"If we can shift some of the groundwater extraction further down the Winter River you see less impact on the stream. So we're trying to change where we draw the water from within the Winter River watershed from our Brackley station down to our Suffolk station."

He said provincial officials approached the utility with this possible solution a few years ago.

MacEwen said the amount of water being removed will not change, but where the water is extracted will. The plan is to pump an additional 1,800 litres a minute at the Suffolk station, a 50 per cent increase, while simultaneously reducing pumping at the Brackley station by 1,800 litres.

A tender is currently out for the work, which MacEwen said could start as early as this month depending on approval, or late spring next year.

The change won't keep the Winter River from going dry in dry summers, he said, but it should help the waterway overall.

More P.E.I. news

With files from Laura Chapin