SYDNEY, N.S. — ACAP Cape Breton and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality water utility are hoping the words come flowing out when residents think about their tap water.
The environmental non-profit and municipal water utility are now accepting submissions for the second annual Watershed Poems contest.
Elizabeth Jessome, a project specialist at ACAP Cape Breton, said people wake up each day, shower, brush their teeth, make meals and clean dishes and wash clothes without stopping to think about the diverse ecosystems where that comes from, or how many people work to ensure that our tap water is safe and reliable. She said the contest is a way to inspire people to remember that vital connection and honour it in the form of a poem.
“We want people to think about where the water comes from, how dependent we are on it and also how fragile the ecosystems and water sources are — they do need to be protected and we need to be conscious and conserve water and ensure that the things we do around our source water areas don’t pollute those sources,” she said.
Jessome said most CBRM residents get their water from five different community lakes, a dammed reservoir or two large community wells. The Middle Lake well field supplies water for Sydney, Membertou, Grand Lake Road, Mira Road, Prime Brook, Sydney River, Coxheath, Westmount, Edwardsville, South Bar, Lingan Road and Pine Tree Park. In Glace Bay, Dominion, Reserve Mines, Tower Road, Donkin, Port Caledonia, Birch Grove and Port Morien, MacAskill's Brook dam provides water. Pottle Lake is the source for North Sydney, Sydney Mines, Upper North Sydney, Alder Point, Balls Creek, Bras d'Or, Florence, Georges River, Leitches Creek, Little Bras d'Or, Little Pond, Mill Creek and Point Aconi. Two bodies of water connected by an underground pipe — Waterford Lake and Kilkenny Lake — supply New Waterford, Scotchtown, River Ryan, New Victoria and Lingan, while Kelly Lake serves residents of Louisbourg. There are also two community wells in Floral Heights and Gardiner Mines.
And no matter where that water ultimately ended up, it all fell from the sky as rain or snow, said Jessome.
“The water cycle, even that groundwater, even if it’s deep underground, rained down from the sky at one point. The snow melt, the rainfall, the oceans, rivers — any type of water that you can think of that surrounds us now — is all eventually recycled and deposited in those lakes or it feeds down through the soil and gets in the groundwater. It’s all the same, it’s all connected.”
The forests that surround the lakes are also popular with people who like to hike, cross-country ski, snowshoe, or birdwatch, and ACAP regularly hosts regular watershed walks that encourage people to do those things while learning how to identify plants and animals that live in those ecosystems.
Jessome said the next one is set to take place Jan. 25 at MacAskill's Brook dam on Birch Grove Road at 11 a.m.
“We’re hoping it’s going to be snowshoe walk, so we’ll kind of snowshoe down along the access pipe that runs to the treatment plant — it just looks like a trail, really — and we’ll go up the actual dam that holds back that water that forms the reservoir and look at the different plants and look for animal tracks and talk about that area.”
Meanwhile, the deadline for submissions to the poetry contest is Feb. 7. Entrants must be CBRM residents and the poems must be original works that are 300 words or less. For full contest guidelines, visit www.acapcb.ns.ca, ACAP Cape Breton’s Facebook page, phone ACAP Cape Breton at 902-567-1628, or email at [email protected].
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