Last Thursday a group of dignitaries, including Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations Ramona Jennex, South Shore-St. Margarets MP Gerald Keddy, Lunenburg MLA Pam Birdsall and Mayor Laurence Mawhinney were on hand for the obligatory ribbon-cutting ceremony which was followed by a tour of the facility.
The mayor told the gathering that Lunenburg was incorporated in 1888, and at that same time a company was formed to provide water and electricity to its citizens. Throughout the years the town's water was safe and potable despite being essentially untreated, and as a result there was no apparent need to consider construction of a treatment plant.
"It was not an easy task to convince Lunenburgers that they needed to spend money to improve a system they had been using for over a century without any particular problems," the mayor explained. "However, some of us had been involved in this process much longer, and had come to the realization it was not only something that was needed, it was also the right thing to do, and we proceeded to do it."
The mayor said the plant, which was funded equally by the three levels of government, services 1,179 residences and 180 businesses in the town with water that originates in Dares Lake.
Along with the new facility, the project also included upgrades to the pumping station located at the lake, as well as the stand pipe which is situated in Garden Lots.
"And we are currently doing what we told residents we would do when we said we were going to build this plant, and that is we will continue to replace the underground pipes which needed to be replaced," he said, adding that about 60 per cent of the original pipes have been upgraded over the last 40 years and that work will continue.
"I hope that 30, 40, 50 years from now, someone will look back at this time in our history and say, 'Well, they did something that was really good, they did it for the right reasons, and it was the right thing to do,'" he said.