Services East side citizens have concerns with City Hall, including safe water

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JEFF DUCHARME
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

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SAINT JOHN - Micheline Rene walks up Coldbrook Crescent to a gravel path that disappears over a hill. At the foot of the path, there's a pile of dirt and pieces of broken curb that the city recently piled there as if they were trying to construct a makeshift dam.

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Cindy Wilson/Telegraph-Journal

Micheline Rene, with her grandson Nicolas Boutin, look at the dirt that washes across Coldbrook Crescent. The problem flows from a walking trail every time it rains hard. Rene said the city has used a grader to remove the dirt, but it’s tearing up the road and is only a temporary fix between storms.

Water, she said, streams down a hilly path and turns the street into a sheet of ice come the winter. The pile of dirt was already beginning to be eroded by the trickling stream of water and puddling at the bottom.

"I don't know if they are finished," Rene said.

"I know that my problem is not a big problem," she said.

But her neighbohour, Don Horsman, isn't as gracious. He said the pot holes and the crumbling asphalt at the top of the street is only part of what concerns him. He regularly calls the city to complain and ask something be done.

"My God, isn't that awful," he said of the pile of dirt, rock and debris at the bottom of the path. "The next big rainstorm and that will be out on the road."

Recently, Rene said, the city did smooth out some of the pot holes with gravel.

The drinking water in their homes, which were built in 2001, is also an ongoing issue.

Neither Rene nor Horsman drink the water that comes out of their taps.

According to Rene, her cat won't even drink the water.

"I'll cook with it, but I won't drink it," Rene said.

"It doesn't smell good and it tastes funny," Rene said.

"Somebody told me because I live in Saint John east I don't get any services," she said with a smile.

Both said the water tastes and smells and simply isn't drinkable.

"I don't know what kind of smell that is - it stinks," Horsman said.

"It has an awful bad taste," Horsman said.

While Rene drinks bottled water, including her cat, Horsman boils his water and then filters it.

"That's the only way," he said.

Filters cost money and the electricity to boil the water also cost money, he said. Not to mention he pays almost $700 a year for city water.

"It would make you sick if you didn't do something about it."

The homes were built in 2001.

"It gets pretty tiresome and the wife don't like it."

As far as the water issue flowing down the trail, he contends a catch-basin needs to be installed at the foot of the trail.

"It's only going to wash back down again," he said about the pile of dirt and debris. "That will only force the water out on the other side and it will flood her (Rene's) lawn."

In love with the Saint John, Rene moved here last year from Quebec City and simply wants the city to give her the services that her taxes pay for. As far as the patch work the city has done on the road and the makeshift damn at the end of the trail, Rene used a French expression to describe what had been done.

"Job de cochon (A very bad job)," she said with a smile.