Nova ScotiaA western Cape Breton community is under a mandatory conservation order after Inverness County said the water level in Mabou’s well was “critically low.”Inverness County declares community well’s water level ‘critically low’Tom Ayers · CBC News · Posted: Nov 12, 2025 5:02 PM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 2 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Inverness County chief administrative officer Keith MacDonald says recent rains have helped, but it will take several weeks for the water to reach Mabou’s only well. (Tom Ayers/CBC)A community in western Cape Breton is under a mandatory conservation order after the water level in its only well was found to be “critically low.”Inverness County issued the order for Mabou last week, saying on its website that dry weather and lack of groundwater to replenish the well are to blame.County chief administrative officer Keith MacDonald says the order is likely only temporary.”Luckily, just recently we’ve had some additional rainfall, but that doesn’t immediately get to our well, so it’ll take a few weeks for that to adjust,” he said. “But we’re already a few weeks into this mandatory request, so we’re hoping that it won’t last too much longer.”It’s all based on rainfall and how that penetrates into the aquifer and we can’t predict, but with the heavy rains of late, we should be able to move back to voluntary [conservation] hopefully in a few weeks.”The county is asking Mabou residents to take steps to use less water, such as taking short showers instead of running a bath and turning off the tap while brushing teeth, and asking them to look for possible leaks.Looking to add capacityMacDonald said Inverness County runs seven municipal water systems and Mabou’s is the only one that doesn’t have multiple wells.He said the community of Whycocomagh is under a voluntary conservation order, but the water levels are good in the other five communities.The county is looking to add capacity to Mabou’s water system in the future to prevent supply issues, MacDonald said.”We’re looking at other opportunities to expand on that so we won’t have as much pressure on that one well.”MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORTom Ayers has been a reporter and editor for 39 years. He has spent the last 21 covering Cape Breton and Nova Scotia stories. You can reach him at tom.ayers@cbc.ca.
Mabou, N.S., under mandatory water conservation order
