Start drilling wells now, says councillor

The City of Charlottetown should stop filling in ditches and repaving roads and start drilling new wells for its water supply, says a city councillor.

Coun. Mitch Tweel told CBC News Wednesday the city's number one priority should be a new water source.

Facing drought conditions over the summer the city implemented voluntary water restrictions in July and August and mandatory ones in September. The city gets virtually all its water from the Winter River watershed, and the local watershed association was complaining too much water was being used. Environment Canada warned the city needed to reduce its reliance on the Winter River wells.

"We can't afford to wait. Now's the time to make the adjustments and repriorize what we need to do for this city," said Tweel.

"We've been preaching all summer long water restrictions. These are stop-gap measures but that doesn't help your water capacity."

Tweel wants the city to divert $1 million it plans to spend on filling ditches, paving roads, and other infrastructure projects over the next two years to creating a new well field in Miltonvale Park. Everything is already in place for the new wells except for the money.

The city says it won't have the money to start work on the new water source until 2014, but Tweel believes the money for ditches and paving roads could go to the water project right now.

Finance chair Coun. Cecil Villard said that's not possible.

"My understanding is no you can't. You can't transfer between the two corporations during the year," said Villard.

"The opportunity to establish priorities and to ensure the budget is adequate is when you're building the budget process itself."

Tweel is going over Villard's head to clarify the question. He's asking for a ruling from Municipal Affairs Minister Wes Sheridan. A spokesperson for Sheridan said the department is aware of Tweel's request, and is looking into it.

For mobile device users:Should Charlottetown start immediately to develop new wells in Miltonvale Park?