In a post on its website in January[2025], Halifax Water said the fluoride tank at Lake Major was at the end of its useful life and was becoming a safety risk in 2020, which is why the decision was made to take it offline.
Staff began plans to replace it in 2021-22 and a capital project was initiated, but record-setting rainfall events over the summer of 2023 “caused significant changes in lake water quality.” Those changes meant more chemicals were being used in the water treatment process to meet compliance obligations.
The plant provides drinking water to customers in Dartmouth, Cole Harbour, Eastern Passage, North Preston, Westphal and Burnside.
Shouldn’t Halifax Water have known ahead of time that the tank was approaching end of life and prepared for it? They didn’t even tell us fluoridation had stopped until years later, and it’s going to be a few more years before it’s back.
Shouldn’t Halifax Water have known ahead of time that the tank was approaching end of life and prepared for it?
We’ve both driven the roads. I’d joke that ‘planning’ isn’t really what they do there, but really it’s the population: low, spread out, and those two things kill infrastructure budgets.
So they probably knew about it and were magically hoping to find the money earlier.
Part of the Halifax area hasn’t had fluoridated water for years because of poor planning:
Shouldn’t Halifax Water have known ahead of time that the tank was approaching end of life and prepared for it? They didn’t even tell us fluoridation had stopped until years later, and it’s going to be a few more years before it’s back.
We’ve both driven the roads. I’d joke that ‘planning’ isn’t really what they do there, but really it’s the population: low, spread out, and those two things kill infrastructure budgets.
So they probably knew about it and were magically hoping to find the money earlier.