City of Regina error left some residents without water

An error by the City of Regina has left some residents without water since Sunday.

A water leak was reported on Sept. 10 on the 2900 block of Montague Street, two blocks south of Regina Avenue.

Typically city crews leave the leak running until it gets fixed to ensure residents continue to have access to water.

But in this case, not only did some residents have their access to water stopped, but one home was missed when crews delivered potable water.

“We had a call and we did deliver some containers but this customer got missed and that was our error,” explained Pat Wilson, water manager for the City of Regina.

That resident was Pat Malott, who described the week as a “nuisance.”

She and her grandchildren have been collecting the dirty water running on the street and boiling it or taking it to the bathroom.

“We fill up buckets and we have the two buckets in the bathroom so if you have to do your stuff, you can flush the toilet and we have to fill the back tank again,” Malott explained.

They haven’t taken showers and have limited their water use as much as possible. They’ve had the added expense of buying bottled water.

“I’m disappointed, the crews are great to come along and put a hole in your sidewalk but they’re not here to fix when we need them,” Malott added.

Wilson is apologizing for the inconvenience that has been caused and is looking into the oversight.

“I am doing following up to determine what happened with the process because that is not our normal means of dealing with these calls,” Wilson maintained. “We want to get that water back on as quickly as we can.”

City crews were on scene Thursday with the aim to have the leak fixed by end of day.

Ground shifting from the dry weather has caused record-breaking water main breaks this summer.

There are currently 90 water leaks across the city and 71 main breaks reported so far in September.

— With files from Kevin Martel.