sewage

By Trevor Greenway

If you smell something, say something. 

Brent Gabie certainly smelled something fierce during his daughter’s wedding reception on May 31 at the Kazabazua Community Hall – raw sewage – and he certainly said a few choice words during the subsequent council meeting as he pleaded with councillors for a full refund over the hall rental. 

“It was real bad, like really, really bad,” Gabie told the Low Down, describing the wafting smell of raw sewage that plagued his daughter Lisa’s wedding reception. “At around 10 or 11 o’clock [p.m.], you couldn’t go outside because the smell was so bad.”

According to Gabie and other wedding attendees the Low Down spoke with, guests couldn’t get away from the smell of sewage – during dinner, the first dance and all throughout the night. Many were flushing toilets constantly to rid the building of the stench, but the smell from the septic tank outside permeated into the building. Wedding organizers then closed the doors, but it got stiflingly hot, so the doors had to remain open, and the smell was “just awful.”

“As soon as you opened the door, you could smell [it],” said Gabie. 

Two weeks later, Gabie showed up at the June 3 Kazabazua council meeting to demand answers – and a refund for the $320 hall rental for his daughter’s wedding reception. At the meeting he was told by Mayor Robert Bergeron that they were basically sh*t out of luck. 

“So, are you going to give us our money back?” asked Gabie. 

“I’m sorry, no,” replied Bergeron with a laugh. “We would like to, but no. This has to be tabled. For any decision from council, it has to be brought to council, tabled, analyzed and then brought for a resolution.”

His answer flared up the room, with residents demanding a vote from councillors on whether or not to issue a refund, but Bergeron shut it down quickly. 

“If you have questions or desires for a decision from council, it has to be forwarded to the municipality in order to request a decision,” Bergeron fired back. 

During the meeting, Gabie claimed that the septic problems at the Kaz municipal hall were not new and had been going on for the past five years. He told the Low Down that they had to stop hosting the Kaz heavy-horse pull there because of the terrible smell and poor planning.

“It’s too bad to say, but Kaz is a real f*cking sh*thole,” said Gabie. “Like, they don’t do anything. They have spoiled everything.”

Bergeron agreed that the smelly septic at the Kaz hall has been a problem for “four or five years” and said that the municipality had hired plumbers multiple times, who thought they had fixed the problem, only for the smell to return during larger events. Bergeron told Gabie and other members of the public that the stinky septic was a priority file as a new splash pad will soon be built there, and he anticipated the increased use to cause more odorous problems. 

“No matter what, we’re going to fix it,” he said at the meeting. But the mayor wouldn’t budge on a refund for the Gabie family despite repeated calls from the attendees throughout the meeting to do so. When asked how long it would take to fix the smell, Bergeron said it will “take the time that is necessary.”

“That’s fu**ing bullsh*t,” yelled Gabie during the meeting. 

Gabie shot back at the mayor and argued that it was unfair for municipalities to penalize residents for non-compliant septic systems.

“I don’t understand it: If we have problems with our septic, we would be in trouble, but when you have problems with your septic, there’s no problem,” said Gabie about the municipality. 

Weeks later, when the Low Down contacted Bergeron for an interview, he immediately said that the Gabie family would in fact be getting their refund back for the hall rental after they did find problems with the septic system. 

P-Trap Problem

Bergeron told the Low Down that after plumbers found no issues, Kaz hired a technologist, who analyzed the town hall’s septic system and found that there were no P-traps installed in the drains. 

“For now, we closed off the drains,” said Bergeron. “The toilets have P-traps. The sinks have P-traps. But the drain, in case there was a flood, there was no P-trap. So now we’ll meet, we’ll find out what we’ll do and then we’ll take it from there. But for now, the drains are completely blocked.”

The Gabie family confirmed that they have been told the Gabies will receive a full refund for the hall rental and added that they were satisfied with Kazabazua’s response. 

Aside from the stench, Brent said his daughter’s wedding “went perfectly.”