opinion

Barry Rueger is a writer currently based in the U.K.

A few weeks ago, our well ran dry. Our Western Head farmhouse, near Liverpool, N.S., is old. Approximately 46 per cent of Nova Scotia homes rely on wells for household water. Like many of them, we have a dug well – a stone-lined hole in the ground, maybe one-and-a-half metres across by seven or eight metres deep. That well normally holds 3,000 gallons of water, filled by the groundwater that flows up from deep in the Earth.

That groundwater has disappeared, and now our well is dry. Four hundred dollars bought us a 3,000-gallon tanker full of water to refill the well, but instead of stabilizing the water level, it’s disappearing quickly into the soil. We’re faced with a choice: Spend $20,000 for a new, deeper, drilled well, o

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