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This week, residents of Alma finally have access to a new water system after some long-lasting problems with their water supply.
“Went off without a hitch,” Sean Wallace, the Fundy Albert chief administrative officer, said in an interview with CBC’s Shift.
“I went down in the morning to talk to a few businesses, and they didn’t even know it was cut over. So that’s always a very good sign, when it’s as seamless as that.”
In recent years, residents have had to put up with many boil-water orders and calls to conserve water.
But as of Monday, the village, which is now part of the sprawling municipality of Fundy Albert, started up a new water system that will hopefully put its water troubles to bed.
“Obviously, they get a ton of tourists down there every year, and it was taxing the water system there,” Wallace said.
The design for the new system was first announced in 2024.
The village of Alma is a popular tourist destination along the Bay of Fundy. (Shane Magee/CBC)
Derek Lackey, who was recently elected to Fundy Albert council, representing Alma, said that in peak summer months the village can see up to 5,000 tourists coming through.
“That is a lot of capacity for a village of 300 people,” Lackey said.
The village is situated between Fundy National Park and Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, along the busy Route 114 tourism corridor.
“Over time, it’s going to be very good for the village,” Lackey said of the new water system.
Wallace said the municipality received $12 million for the project, most of which came from the federal government.
He said the construction was not too disruptive, and the new system has 300-foot-deep wells and two large storage tanks that are around 170,000 gallons each.
An added benefit is that aspects of the new system can be monitored remotely, which Wallace said would reduce the need for municipal workers to spend lots of time travelling to the site in Alma.
“Everything has improved a hundredfold,” he said.
Wallace said it is too early to tell the exact cost of the system, but he estimated it has been about $7 million or $8 million so far.
A notice posted online by the municipality said that as the system starts to come online, residents may experience brief periods of cloudy or discoloured water, temporary fluctuations in water colour, odour or water pressure, all of which were described as harmless.