There was much frustration from a number of residents in the west end of Cobourg on Wednesday, August 6, 2025.
Approximately 80 homes in the Pebble Beach area were suddenly without water at around 11 a.m.
It hasn’t been confirmed whether it was a water main break, or machinery struck a water main at the site of a culvert replacement on King Street West, west of Burnham Street.
The construction has been down to one lane since approximately June 16 when the nearly $2 million project was started.
But it all came to a halt at around 11 a.m.
Pebble Beach resident Adam Yahn said he was sprinkling water shortly before 11 a.m. when the pressure suddenly went down. When it went to check his taps, there was no water at all.
“I called Lakefront (Utilities) myself because I wasn’t sure it was just me and then 15-minutes later, two Lakefront Utility workers came by who were going door-to-door and said there was an issue.”
Neighbours told Yahn that repairs were expected to be completed by 5 p.m., but by 7 p.m. the area was still without water.
“It’s frustrating on a couple of fronts.”
“First of all we haven’t had any communication when it’s going to come back. There is no end in sight. I really hope it wasn’t a planned water outage because none of us knew or were given any heads up at least to prepare.”
The neighbourhood is a mixture of older people and younger families.
“It’s a bit frustrating and I will be talking to Lakefront and the town asking why the company didn’t provide water, why no notification. Since 11 a.m. we no nothing.”
The neighbourhood has experienced other outages over the last few years including a power outage of 28-hours during a winter storm.
“Luckily we have a good group of neighbours that care for each other. Our neighbour ran out and grabbed some water for us. We have a really good community but we are fortunately a little too used to this “
Yahn said signs posted along the area of construction, states that pedestrians aren’t allowed to walk past the area that is one lane and using a traffic light.
“They can’t even add 20 seconds to the signals to give people that little bit of extra time to allow people to exit the neighbourhood.”
“Between that and now this, there are a lot of upset residents for sure.”
The King Street west culvert was constructed in the 1970’s and was in poor condition. The replacement will take approximately four-months will support a widened road platform to accommodate future bike lanes, and future sidewalk.
Emergency services including Cobourg Fire Department have been notified of the situation.
Residents may notice cloudy or discoloured water once service is restored—this is temporary and can be cleared by running cold water from a lower-level tap.
A social media post states the repairs were to be completed by 10 p.m.
It’s unknown if it was a water main break, or whether the water main broke as a result of construction.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
