Thank you for signing the petition to get FUNCTIONAL fire hydrants installed in Upper Hammonds Plains. NOW WE'RE ASKING YOU TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP.  Please read on...

On September 26th, a meeting was held between Halifax Water and the residents of Upper Hammonds Plains. The proposal from Halifax Water was to install some additional hydrants between White Hills Runs to the Community Centre. These would be serviced by the same 8-inch pipes. 

The three hydrants we have now DON'T WORK, and it's because of those undersized pipes. The communities next to ours have 16-inch pipes. So how is that a solution? 

We need to make our voices heard. Let's flood the email inboxes of the people who can make a difference. We thank you in advance. 

Please do the following: 
1. Open a blank email. 

2. Copy these addresses below by highlighting them and pushing "ctrl c".

Mackenk@halifaxwater.ca; cathie.otoole@halifax.ca; dmamin@novascotia.ca; johnlohrmla@gmail.com; ansaminister@novascotia.ca; 

3. Paste the above addresses into the "To" field of your blank email. 

4. Copy the letter below by highlighting it everything below this paragraph and pushing "ctrl c". Then paste it into the body of your email using "ctrl v". Sign your name at the end of the letter and push send.

Re: Functional Fire Hydrants for Upper Hammonds Plains

To the Honourable John Lohr, Minister of Municipal Affairs, to the Honourable Twila Grosse, Minister of African Nova Scotian Affairs, to Cathie O'Toole, CAO of Halifax Regional Municipality, and to Kenda MacKenzie, Acting CEO of Halifax Water. 

Upper Hammonds Plains, a Historic Black Community located within the Halifax Regional Municipality, lacks basic water infrastructure to protect its residents from fires. This is the current reality, despite the community being situated next to Pockwock Lake, from which water has been extracted for generations to service the water consumption needs of the Halifax Regional Municipality. 

Approximately 25 years ago, Halifax Water, with the approval of the then-Halifax Regional Municipality and the Provincial Dept of Municipal Affairs, installed undersized 6- and 8-inch water pipes in this community. They knew that these would be inadequate for the proper functioning of the (only) 3 fire hydrants along Pockwock Rd, an 8km stretch of road that is the heart of the community of Upper Hammonds Plains. The impact of the undersized pipes on fire suppression was not shared with the community at the time. Neither was community consulted in this decision. 

The result has been that the 3 existing fire hydrants cannot be used to fight fires, a fact which only came to light recently when attempts were made to use the hydrants and they didn't work. In fact, in one instance, connecting to the hydrant resulted in the pump at the water station being blown out.

When questioned, Halifax Water stated that the hydrants were "for training purposes" and weren't actually intended to fight fires. 

The communities around Upper Hammonds Plains, which are seeing unprecedented rates of development and an influx of new residents, are served by 16-inch pipes and have functional fire hydrants every 500 metres or so. 

It is unacceptable and is blatantly discriminatory that this community should not have access an adequate number of functional fire hydrants to fight fires. 

Halifax Water has had the opportunity and the funding to right this wrong, but has chosen instead to spend a budget surplus outside of the community of Upper Hammonds Plains. 

We are demanding that Halifax Water, the Halifax Regional Municipality and the NS Department of Municipal Affairs right this wrong with haste. We want the same standards of fire protection as the communities around us. We want the undersized water pipes replaced with those which will deliver water to fire hydrants for their adequate function. And we want to ensure that we have enough hydrants to protect our residents, all of which much be rated for fire suppression.

Our community looks forward to engaging with the relevant stakeholders to bring a timely and satisfactory conclusion to this urgent matter. 

#RightTheWrong #UpsizeTheUNDERSIZEDPipes