HEBBVILLE - Bridgewater's water utility has awarded a $2 million tender for initial dam upgrade work outside of town.

 Atlantic Industrial Services will spruce up 800 metres of Hebb Lake embankment dams as well as the perimeter road. The company will also fix up a mechanism that carries extra water over and around the barrier, called a spillway.

 There will be further upgrades to the Weagle Road dams and a gate controlling its water flow. Upstream and downstream passages for migrating fish, called fishways, will be built at the Hebb Lake and Weagle Road dams.

 Bridgewater's Public Service Commission, the corporate body that operates the town's water utility and provides potable water to over 3,000 town and Municipality of Lunenburg customers, awarded the deal last month.

 About $1.4 million of the cost is covered by federal and provincial governments, while the commission is responsible for about $684,000.

 Commission chairman and Bridgewater Town Councillor Bill McInnis said the work is connected to the 2005 floods in the area.

 "That's what precipitated this," he said, pointing out much work was done before the tender was issued.

 "That's why we had to put our water rates up. We knew it was coming," he noted of the Hebbville dam work.

 The commission successfully applied in 2009 to Nova Scotia's Utility and Review Board to raise water and water service rates through to 2011.

 The commission's water system contains six dams that have to meet requirements of a national organization dedicated to safe operation of Canadian dams.

 "A comprehensive study on the utility's dams has recently been completed which indicates that major work is needed in order to be compliant with [the national organization's] guidelines," said the utility and review board's 2009 report.

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 "The proposed works have a significant impact on the utility's operating and capital costs ... ."

 Councillor McInnis said there's more work to come, which water rates will help pay for.

 "If you take all the phases in consideration I think we projected the thing was going to come in about $5 million."

posted on 09/07/10