Water woes plaguing Middle Sackville trailer park headed to court
Before Jennifer Steele and her husband moved into their home on Springfield Estates park in Middle Sackville, N.S., in 2013, they knew there was an issue with the water.
She says she was told by someone else in the mobile home park that there was some "history" there. But it was affordable, she said. So they bought it.
"We decided to take a gamble," she says. "We were looking for a small affordable place. So we decided to roll the dice, so to speak, and purchase a place."
The poor water quality was obvious immediately.
"The first thing I noticed when we bought the house is that there's this film that you can't get off the tub. It's like an orange rust. It's gross. I feel like I'm always cleaning our bathroom because of it."
"When my parents visit, I tell them to use hand sanitizer," Steele says. "Don't brush their teeth with it. I'm just, like, the water — who knows what's wrong with it? Just don't touch it."
It now appears the water quality issues that Steele and her neighbours live with may be settled by the courts. Springfield Estates Mobile Home Park was formally charged this year with operating a park without a license from the Halifax Regional Municipality — plus another charge of not providing potable water to residents. A court date has been set for June of 2024.
Permanent boil-water order
Halifax Water doesn't extend far enough down Sackville Drive to reach Springfield Estates, so the owners of the park draw water from nearby Little Springfield Lake.
The park is owned by Springfield Estates Mobile Home Park and Westphal Mobile Home Courts Ltd. All of the infrastructure needed to bring that water from the lake and into the homes in the park is privately owned.
For years, every time the power went out, Steele says the park would immediately be under a boil-water order.
That boil-water order became permanent in 2021. Since then Steele says park owners have been delivering 40 personal-sized bottles of water to each home in the park every Wednesday.
Two other mobile home owners in the park told CBC their water was also contaminated. But they didn't want to go on the record fearing retribution from park ownership. Steele says that concerns her too. But she says she's also reluctant to confront park ownership about the water quality because she worries they may just end up selling the property.
"My big reason for not doing that is I'm scared to death they're going to sell the park and then I'm going to be left with the trailer that has no land and I'm not going to have a place to live."
CBC reached out to the owners of the park for comment but so far there's been no reply. The owners did send a notice to residents in late October to say they "understand the boil water order has caused inconvenience and stress." The notice says the water is unfit to drink because of "changes to the [Little Springfield] lake environment." It went on to say they're testing wells to see if they can find a better source of safe water.
The municipal councillor for the area, Lisa Blackburn, says this is an issue she's been working on for years.
"As councillor, I would receive the complaints from residents saying there was no water pressure, there'd be days where the water would be shut off, and then in other instances the water was so brown it couldn't be used."
Coun. Lisa Blackburn represents District 14 for the Halifax Regional Municipality which includes Middle Sackville. (CBC)
Blackburn says city staff visited the park earlier this year to investigate complaints and discovered that Springfield Estate's permit to operate the park expired in 2014. It hasn't been renewed since.
"Once staff discovered there wasn't a valid operating permit, they did try very hard to work with the park ownership and was constantly met with stonewalls and just, you know, not getting the information or the action that they needed. So we had no choice but to send it over to our legal folks."
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