The dry hydrant at Bangs Falls pictured in early September, one of the photos of the condition of dry hydrants, posted by the Greenfield and District Fire Department. (Greenfield and District Fire Department)

A new dry hydrant will be installed behind the North Queens Nursing Home but at almost three times the cost that Region of Queens councillors were expecting.

The dry hydrant behind the manor in Caledonia has been on a list of planned work for the past five or six years, council heard at their meeting last week.

Councillors had budgeted $40,000 this year to install three new dry hydrants. The two others were planned for Mary Lake and Westfield Road, also in Caledonia.

But the one approved by council last week near the nursing home is the only one that will be installed this year, and at a cost of $40,000. The others will be pushed to next year, according to Garrett Chetwynd, the region’s manager of public works.

Chetwynd told councillors that staff decided to contract out the work because public works staff were busy with other projects.

“The original request for pricing was posted to the provincial procurement site where we received no responses. When we received no submissions to that, it was submitted to, I believe, 12 local contractors. So that same RFP was sent to them and we only received one submission back.”

That was from C. Eugene Ingram Construction in Liverpool, who will install for $40,000 plus HST.

Dry hydrants are used where traditional hydrants aren’t available. They access water sources such as ponds, lakes or streams to help fight fires. The municipality maintains 51 dry hydrants around the county.

District 6 Coun. Stewart Jenkins said he was concerned that one hydrant will cost so much. He asked how much it’s historically cost to install a dry hydrant, but Chetwynd said he was familiar with only one being installed during his time with the region and he didn’t have those numbers.

“I’m not against dry hydrants coming in,” Jenkins said. “I am against one hydrant costing what three was expected to cost.”

He said he’d like to see council combine dry hydrant maintenance and installation into one larger tender to attract more bids.

“If we as a region working with the fire departments came up with a plan of putting in new hydrants or fixing old ones and came up with a group of hydrants to have fixed, then we would get a tender because it would suddenly become a higher dollar value,” Jenkins told his fellow councillors.

“And I think if we had, you know, $150,000 worth of work out there or $200,000, we’d do it once every two years and fix up a whole bunch of things, it would make it more acceptable to get better quality quotes from the people that do this sort of work in Queens County.”

Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton said bundling the work into a higher-value tender makes sense, especially if municipal staff can’t do it.

“We do have to try to make this more competitive for sustainability moving forward.”

Councillors voted to direct staff to compile a list of new dry hydrants requested to date and those in need of repair to attract more competitive bids for tender. 

Some councillors were also concerned about delaying the work on the other two new hydrants to next year.

With the recent drought conditions in Nova Scotia, many of the water sources for the hydrants have literally dried up. The Greenfield and District Fire Department recently sounded the alarm about the condition of some of the hydrants in their area. According to a Sept. 1 Facebook post, the department has reported problems with dry hydrants to the region many times.

Councillors had set aside $110,820 in this year’s budget for maintenance and installation.

Jenkins said that while the dry hydrants provide handy access to water, the county’s volunteer fire departments have other ways of getting water to a fire scene.

“I know from experience with the fire departments that they do have other ways of getting water out of water sources than the dry hydrants. 
There’s portable pumps that are high volume. Many of the trucks have front intakes so they can pull into a site and pump water. So I don’t think it’s a fact that they’re not going to have water to that site. 
There’s other ways of doing it. And Greenfield (fire) department has had to lay out the other ways of doing it because half of their dry hydrants are very dry and the other ones are plugged up with mud.”

When asked, Chetwynd said he believes the work will likely begin in the next month, though he wasn’t sure exactly when or if the agreement dictates a timeline.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Region of Queens Coun. Stewart Jenkins, Queens MLA Kim Masland and Greenfield and District Fire Chief Moyal Conrad at a funding announcement Monday about improvements at the fire hall. (Rick Conrad)

The Greenfield and District Fire Department will get much-needed improvements to its fire hall, with $600,000 in provincial funding announced Monday by Queens MLA and Emergency Management Minister Kim Masland.

“This funding will help ensure that the people who protect this area have the space and the infrastructure that they need,” Masland said at an event at the hall.

The support was part of almost $800,000 Masland announced for projects in Queens County at the Greenfield fire hall.

The Greenfield department is planning a $1.1- to $1.3-million renovation and expansion to its fire hall and emergency bays.

The work will ensure that the bays are the correct size for modern fire trucks. It will also create a dedicated bay for its rescue truck. Now, firefighters have to spend extra time driving a fire truck out of the bay to access the rescue truck.

The whole building is also getting a facelift, with new steel siding and other exterior improvements.

Renovations to the fire hall will make it even more useful as a community hall and a registered comfort centre.

Along with additional, expanded and accessible washrooms and separate shower rooms, the kitchen is getting a major facelift. At the fire hall’s popular fundraising breakfasts, volunteers can serve up to 300 people. With a new commercial kitchen, they will be able to serve more than 100 people an hour.

Chief Moyal Conrad told QCCR it will be the first time in 35 years that the fire hall has had significant work done.

“This will mean for us as a fire department it’s going to make my firemen safer, be able to respond faster and hopefully put a little more pride into their community with a new structure and all this gear potentially we could get out of this grant.”

The provincial contribution is on top of $200,000 from the Region of Queens Municipality and about $125,000 from the fire department’s own fundraising efforts.

Conrad said the department will raise the rest of the money.

Stewart Jenkins, a local business owner and municipal councillor for the area, is acting as the project manager for the hall overhaul.

He said the work will begin in a couple of weeks and be mostly finished by Christmas and likely wrapped up by April.

Jenkins said the work is vital to ensure the fire hall can continue to support the community. 

“It’s an important factor that we get the trucks out of the bays faster and especially the specific trucks that need to go can go immediately. And as far as the hall imporvements, it’s to become a centre for people if they need it. If there are power outages or whatnot, they can stay close to home and still get fed and showered and taken care of.”

Masland also announced $187,143.35 in funding from the province on Monday for groups maintaining trails in Queens.

The Queens Rails to Trails Association will get $144,345 for work on the Hunts Point Trail, including brushing, ditching, resurfacing and culvert replacement. The group will also get a total of $25,034 in an annual maintenance grant to look after various trails in Queens.

The Queens County ATV Association is receiving $17,763.75 for development of the new Deep Brook Trail, which will stretch from Highway 8 to River Road in Milton. 

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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