Complaining about the lack of water pressure in their homes, citizens of Beauharnois, in Montérégie, are asking the municipality to solve the problem before lifting its moratorium on new constructions in their sector.
Tenant of an apartment located on the second floor of a building in the Melocheville sector, Marjolaine Grenier has to deal with often insufficient water pressure in the shower. “Sometimes, in the morning, I don’t know if I should wash my head or not: will the water stop, will I stay with my soap? As for the bath, she must run it half an hour in advance, she said.
Its sector has been subject to a moratorium on new residential construction since the spring of 2022, but the City wishes to put an end to it. A notice of motion and a draft by-law, for the moment suspended, were on the agenda for the last council meeting, on July 4.
Alain Savard, councilor for district 5, which includes half of Melochville, is the only elected official to have opposed the lifting of the moratorium. Before allowing new buildings, the City must connect the sector to its two additional wells already built, he pleads. “It’s been dragging on for years, I’ve been sidelined, it has to be sorted out! commented Mr. Sirois over the phone.
The citizens’ committee of which Mme Grenier says he has collected more than 400 signatures in support of this scenario.
“We are for it to develop”, assures Mme Grenier, citing a recent article by The Press on new industrial and commercial construction that will help Beauharnois finance its infrastructure. “The City is going to put more money into infrastructure and we consider that our infrastructure is a priority. »
The municipality of some 14,400 inhabitants has scheduled an information meeting at City Hall on Tuesday, July 18 in the evening.
“The water pressure has nothing to do with the moratorium,” said Mayor Alain Dubuc in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The piping system in the basement is so damaged, so old that it can’t withstand the pressure. It’s not 1200 cubic meters more water that we’re going to bring in new wells that will change anything. »
The village of Melocheville merged with the city of Beauharnois in 2002.
In 2021, Melocheville ran out of water “because there were lots of leaks in the network, it was flowing everywhere” and pipes burst in the frost, recalls the mayor.
The moratorium, which “started from that”, allowed elected officials to have a better “knowledge of the file” and to be “reassured” by the answers obtained, says Mr. Dubuc.
“I want citizens to ask the same questions that we asked ourselves as elected officials. »
The connection to the two wells “is the number one priority of the council” and it would already have been done if the calls for tenders of the City had not remained without bidders, assures the mayor. “We are going to change our method for someone to bid,” but it could take a year before the work is completed, he estimates.
On the other hand, solving the pressure problems in Melocheville will take “a lot of investment, a lot of millions and a lot of time. You have to change the pipes underground, put a filter in the filtration plant that costs millions [et] a bigger tank – those are the first three steps to do”.
This work will be planned “in the next budgets, but it is not business that is done in a year”.