The Town of Sutton held a press conference on Wednesday, April 6 to present a study completed recently by engineering firm Tetra Tech to address its water supply problem. With a lack of water in its mountain sector and its Academy watershed, the town plans to prohibit the construction of residential homes on the mountainside and the division of property to create more homes near the Academy watershed until the issue is resolved.

“Since 1975 the Town of Sutton has made over 10 studies -12 studies to be exact - regarding this issue, but not much action was taken throughout the years,” said Pascal Smith, director general for the town. “So, we gave last year a mandate to Tetra Tech in order for them to make a summary of all the studies and provide us with some possible solutions to this problem.”

Smith explained that there are two times during the year, February to March and in the summer in July, when the town usually has drought.

“We wanted to make sure to preserve the water that we already have here in the town and make sure that we don’t amplify the problems,” mentioned Smith.

The town’s major concern is having a large enough water supply to support its fire services if a fire were to break out. There are plans to collaborate with the MRC (Regional county municipality) to ensure that enough water is available.

“The city will adopt a resolution asking the MRC to control the new developments in Sutton. There will be two different zones that will be impacted. There is the urban perimeter in the mountain, which any new construction will be prohibited until we are sure of the solution we are going to put in force and until we find water basically. There is also the other perimeter that will be affected is the watershed in the village. At this territory of the watershed, the construction will be limited, it won’t be prohibited it will be limited, to one house per piece of land,” explained Smith.

As one of Tetra Tech’s recommendations, the town also plans to find new sources of water in the mountain.

“Throughout the years in Sutton, we have always put aside the possibility that there could be water underground in the mountain. So, we always relied on surface water and we are going to challenge  that hypothesis a bit and look for new sources of water in the mountain,” added Smith. “We will give a contract to engineers in order for them to look at what would be the best spot where there could be some water and we will dig exploratory wells to confirm if there is any water in the mountain or not.”

Smith said that the town wants to address its water problem as quickly as possible to ensure the quality of life for its citizens and to avoid hindering the development of the village.

“For the town itself, this situation creates limitations to the development of the town and also creates limitations on the economic development of the town and the region. MONT Sutton for example has some investments to do in the next years and this situation is limiting their possibilities. So, it’s important for us, the town, for the region and for the citizens to address this situation quickly,” he said.

Listen to the full interview with Pascal Smith below: