‘Certainly going to help’: Maritime farmers thankful for overnight rainfall amid drought

Did the Maritimes receive enough rain to lift water restrictions?

Heavy rain pelted the Maritimes on Thursday night and into Friday morning, which was a welcome sight for farmers like Christian Michaud, co-owner of Michaud Farms LTD., which has been experiencing a dry season.

“It did affect me…I feel fortunate that it probably affected other farmers, them more than me. There still will be some financial implications, but we got showers that other people didn’t get,” says Michaud.

The farmer based in Bouctouche, N.B., says the rain will do little to help this year’s harvest that’s already ended.

Still, he says the rain “is certainly going to help next year’s crop of strawberries.”

The battle isn’t over for people living in West Hants Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, which has been under a mandatory water restriction order for three weeks and counting.

“(It’s) unprecedented for us. We’ve never, ever seen these types of droughts in the past, for quite some time,” says Todd Richard, West Hants Regional Municipality’s public works director.

“We did see from that rain last night, an increase in one centimetre of lake service throughout that period. Any rain is certainly welcome, but certainly not the amount that we need to bring us out of this drought conditions.”

Halifax Water says they’ve seen an eight per cent drop in consumption since asking people in the Halifax area to conserve water.

Jeff Myrick, the utility’s senior communications manager, says it’s too early to know how much of an impact it will have.

“It will take a lot more rain than what we’ve had overnight to actually get our lakes back to a healthy level,” he says.

“We expect that will happen over the fall, but it hasn’t panned out just yet.”