Tantramar Council orders annual glyphosate testing of Sackville and Dorchester drinking water

Tantramar Town Council resisted advice from Town Engineer Jon Eppell on Tuesday and ordered that drinking water in Sackville and Dorchester be tested every year for the presence of glyphosate.

The herbicide, frequently sold under the commercial name Roundup, is heavily used by forestry companies in New Brunswick to eliminate ground vegetation that can inhibit the growth of young trees. NB Power also sprays it to control weeds on its transmission line routes.

“Each of our water supplies in Dorchester and Sackville have three wells and they have filter systems,” Eppell told council.

He explained that the six wells are tested every month for bacteria, twice a year for organic materials and once every year for heavy metals including the iron and manganese that are filtered out of the water.

No measurable results

“We have tested for glyphosate previously and found that the concentration was not measurable,” Eppell said, referring to tests conducted in 2023 at the request of a resident who was worried about the water supply.

He said the town had no plans to conduct further tests.

“It is not required to be tested for by either the guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality in Canada nor for approval to operate,” he added.

He also said that the herbicide is unlikely to be washed down into wells.

Federal guidelines for Canadian drinking water quality state that since glyphosate is absorbed in soils, it “would therefore not be expected to migrate to groundwater supplies after application.”

Testing costs

“It’s not that the sampling can’t be done,” Eppell told council.

“It certainly can and it wouldn’t harm the system to do it. It is just an additional cost because each test that you do for each individual well would be around $300 — around $250 to $300 each.”

He noted that the town would also have to pay Veolia, the big international company that manages Tantramar’s water systems, to gather the raw water samples.

He said there are buffer zones around the Sackville watershed to protect drinking water supplies.

In the end though, the town engineer’s comments fell on deaf ears and council unanimously passed a motion directing that glyphosate testing be conducted every year on the Sackville and Dorchester water supplies when the testing is done for heavy metals.

For coverage in 2017, when Sackville Town Council called for an end to the “indiscriminate spraying” of glyphosate especially in areas where municipalities get their drinking water, click here.

For a CHMA story from 2023 on glyphosate spraying north of the Sackville watershed, click here.

For a recent CBC report on Premier Susan Holt’s promise to ban glyphosate spraying if a link is found to the mystery brain illness that has afflicted dozens of New Brunswickers, click here.

Bruce Wark worked in broadcasting and journalism education for more than 35 years. He was at CBC Radio for nearly 20 years as senior editor of network programs such as The World at Six and World Report. He currently writes for The New Wark Times, where a version of this story first appeared on February 6, 2025.