Nobody seems to know why wells are going dry in Clarington

Dozens of complaints from residents who are getting by with little or no water

By Mike Smee, CBC News

An elderly couple in a municipality just east of Toronto have been living without running water for the past several months, and no one seems to know why Libby and Stan Racansky’s well has run dry.

But what is known is that dozens of homes in Clarington have had problems wih their well-water supply at least since the beginning of 2016.

“Bathing, it’s just incredible,” said Libby Racansky. “We have to go to our daughter. She lives in Etobicoke and we take showers once per week.”

Also every week, the Racanskys, in their 70s, drive 37 km to a public spring, where they fill up four 18.5 litre water jugs.

There are about 4,700 household wells in Clarington, according to the provincial Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. Joe Neal, who represents Clarington’s Wards 1 and 2 on Durham Region Council, said he learned first-hand recently that the Racanskys aren’t the only residents battling the problem.

“In the fall I was receiving at least two calls a week from different property owners who were having similar problems — wells were dry,” he told CBC Toronto.

There are several possible reasons why well water levels are so low. One is last year’s drought.

“We didn’t have the snow melt to re-charge the aquifers,” said Clarington’s assistant director of engineering Ron Albright. Then, in the summer that followed, unusually low rainfall made the problem worse.

Albright said water levels across the municipality dropped by more than three metres in an area where many of the wells are only about five metres deep.

‘Not many have come back’

But if drought was the only problem, wouldn’t most of the problem wells have recovered by now?

“Not many … have come back,” said Albright, adding he’s hopeful that will change in the months ahead.

That sentiment is echoed by Perry Sisson, the director of engineering and field operations for the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, which includes Clarington. However, he warns that unpredictable weather alone may not be the problem.

“Climate change is ringing in the back of everyone’s mind,” he said last week. “That doesn’t mean there can’t be other complications at other sites.”

Those complications could include the record amount of construction that’s happening in the Clarington area, according to some.

In the past decade, Clarington’s population has grown by about 10 per cent to 85,000. According to municipal records, last year almost 1,000 homes were built there — more than at any other time in the past decade.

Large-scale developments, like subdivisions, have affected peoples’ wells in the past, Albright said. In fact, Durham Region has put in place a program that helps homeowners replace their water supply, if it’s interrupted by developers.

That can happen at the beginning of a job, Albright said, when construction crews begin pumping water out of a subdivision site to safely install infrastructure, like sewers and water mains.

That pumping sometimes depletes the water table, which feeds household wells. Once the pumping is finished, the water table — and local well levels — should return to normal, he said.

Homeowners compensated

But if it doesn’t, the region’s Well Interference Policy kicks in. That allows homeowners to either connect to the municipal water main, or have a new well drilled, at little or no expense to them.

In 2016, five homeowners whose properties are adjacent to a new subdivision at Regional Rd. 57 and Hwy. 2 have taken advantage of that policy. All five opted to have new wells drilled, Albright said.

There is one catch though: The homeowner is on the hook for the cost of running a pipe from the municipal water main into their home.

In the Racanskys’ case, that would cost about $3,000, a cost Stan Racansky is not willing to bear.

“If I caused the problem, I’d have to pay for it,” he told CBC Toronto last week. “But I didn’t cause it.”

He blames a neighbouring developer for his water problems, an accusation the developer denies.

Neal, the Racanskys’ councillor, also wonders whether construction of the Hwy. 407 extension nearby could also be to blame for some of the complaints he has received.

That possibility has come up in the dilemma that’s faced by Ron Spry, who lives a few kilometres from the Racanskys.

Six weeks ago, when he turned on a tap, “you’d be sucking air. No water,” he told CBC Toronto. “You couldn’t even flush a toilet. I felt like a tomcat all summer running around out in the yard. You just try to conserve.”

Today, his well is still so low that he has to haul thousand-litre tanks in the back of his pickup truck for a fill-up at a friend’s house in Oshawa every week.

“I don’t do laundry here any more; I take the laundry out.”

407 construction at fault?

As for the cause, like Coun. Neal, Spry wonders whether construction of the 407 extension and a feeder highway, 418, are contributing to the municipality’s problem.

“I’d go for a drive and you could see open cuts of land, and little pop up lakes all over the place,” he said.

Overall last year, Albright said the municipality fielded abut a dozen queries from people who complained that the 407 extension may have been affecting their well levels, none of which were substantiated

Developers of the 407 wouldn’t speak on camera, but they did send a written statement to CBC Toronto that reads, in part:

“We have met with‎ representatives from all the appropriate environmental agencies; the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, the Region of Durham and Clarington as well as the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority.

“There is an agreement among these agencies that the drop in the water table is weather-related and that the drop is caused by unusually low seasonal precipitation. It is not related to Hwy 407 construction activities.”