Drillers must dig deeper WATER: Average well now 48 metres; a few years ago it was 40 metres CHUCK

BROWN Telegraph-Journal ST. STEPHEN - Charlotte County well drillers are worried about the lack of water. Without rain, wells have dried up, causing concerns about water quantity and quality. Weve been busy but its not good, said Allan Short, owner of Clearwater Well Drilling, in St. Stephen. Its starting to get serious. Mr. Short said rainfall levels are dropping, wells are drying up and he has to dig deeper every year in search of good water. The average well he digs now is 48 metres (160 feet) deep. A few years ago, good water could be found less than 40 metres deep. Its quite a lot deeper than it would have been even six years ago. A lot of them would have been about 125 or 130 feet and a lot of the 60-to-80-foot wells have dried right up and we had to deepen a lot of them, Mr. Short said. The water table is way down, the aquifers have slowed right up. Its been getting a little drier each year. Most of his work is the replacement of rural wells. Were replacing the old hand-dug type wells, mostly in the country - the old farms, he said. New wells are needed all over Charlotte County, including Grand Manan island, Mr. Short said. In the town of St. Stephen, where water comes from wells located just outside the town, there have been scares over the past few years. In the fall of 2000 the town had to declare a water emergency with serious fines for offences like washing a car or watering a lawn. In the summer of 2001 there were more concerns and appeals for conservation. Now the water supply is adequate but its just one dry season away from more serious problems. Our system is holding, said Bob Brown, the mayor of St. Stephen. But we have a major concern about the overall lack of rain. The water table in the area is going down and down and down. To help, the town has built an earth dam on Dennis Stream and there are plans to make that dam permanent. Our hope is, we are planning to build a permanent dam on Dennis Stream within the next year but that will only stabilize the situation, Mr. Brown said. We have to talk conservation. Its not just a product that will never run out. For almost a decade, St. Stephen officials have been looking for another water source but Mr. Brown said that search is drying up. We may have exhausted those searches, he said. The pressure on St. Stephens water supply will be relieved slightly in the next two years when the town stops selling water to the city of Calais, Me. For a century St. Stephen has pumped water across the Ferry Point International Bridge but that sale agreement is expected to end as Calais searches for its own water supply. Mr. Brown said even with Calais unhooked from the supply system, St. Stephen will still have water concerns. We havent had rain for well over a year, he said. We didnt get a spring rain. We didnt get the tail end of any hurricanes this fall. We dont have any snow cover now. Last year we had a good snow cover and thats the only thing, probably, that saved the whole area. There has to be rain this spring or it could get very serious for everyone.