Firm says it did nothing wrong and asks the court to drop the case
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Dillon Consulting has responded to a lawsuit filed by the Town of Woodstock, denying any negligence or wrongdoing related to the Grafton well.
On Dec. 30, 2024, the town filed a statement of claim in the Court of King’s Bench in Woodstock against the consulting company to recoup at least a portion of the millions of dollars it spent on designing and building a failed second well to secure a dependable water source for the next several decades.
Dillon is a national firm that provides planning, engineering, environmental science, and management services, with 25 offices across Canada, employing approximately 1,100 people.
The Town of Woodstock launched a search for a second water supply in 2014 after a severe ice jam knocked out the causeway and power grid to the town’s main well, leaving the town without water. While town and NB Power crews managed to limit the time Woodstock residents spent without water, the experience highlighted the town’s precarious position due to its reliance on a single water source.
Woodstock consulting engineer Ken Hannah began searching for a second water source shortly after the 2014 scare. Dillon Consulting became involved after purchasing Hannah’s firm.
The suit does not specify a particular amount of compensation but seeks construction costs, damages for additional expenses, court costs, and potentially other related costs.
In its initial statement of claim, Woodstock legal representative Stewart McLevey noted that the town retained Dillon Consulting in early 2017 to design and construct a Grafton wellhouse with a manganese treatment plant, septic system, and water transmission to connect to the Grafton well.
The town claims Dillon identified Grafton as the most suitable site for the town’s second well. The town and Dillon agreed the Grafton well could support the Woodstock water supply on its own if required.
With Dillon in charge, the town completed the design and construction in 2021. With funding support from provincial and federal governments, the town invested an estimated $4 million in the project. The project seemed to be headed in the right direction as the work to bring the well online showed initial promise.
In February 2020, then-Carleton MLA Stewart Fairgrieve and Andrea Anderson-Mason, the New Brunswick minister for the Regional Development Corporation at the time, joined then-Mayor Art Slipp to announce RDC’s contribution of $800,000 to the $2.4 million portion of the well project at the time.
The River Valley Sun news story then announced that $900,000 in pending federal funding was available for the project.
The story, however, began to sour in 2021, after the project was completed. According to Woodstock’s statement of claim, Dillon discovered water tests indicating water quality, including high salinity, hardness, and clarity, fell short of meeting Health Canada standards. Dillon began remedial efforts.
The town contends that Dillon confirmed to the town in the spring of 2023 that the well could not be used in its current state.
In its statement, the town informed the court that it had contracted CBCL in April 2024 to conduct further tests on the water from the Grafton Well. The CBCL report indicated that the water was safe to drink only when pumped at a low volume.
“CBCL further found that the water would not be of a standard expected of residents for the same reasons identified by the Defendant (Dillon), and should not be blended with the existing water supply,” the town said in its legal statement.
According to the town’s claim, salvaging the Grafton well would require a $5 million treatment plant, which would cost between $300,000 and $400,000 annually to operate and maintain.
In Dillon’s response to the initial statement of claim, filed by law firm Burchill Wickwire Bryson on behalf of the company, dated Aug. 5, 2025, it maintains that the well was never intended to be a replacement for the existing wells at the town marina, but rather, was used for emergency purposes only.
It also denies any wrongdoing and stated, in its filings with the court, that it denies owing a duty to the town to “ensure that the Grafton Well was capable of supplementing the main water supply on a routine basis as opposed to being used exclusively as an operational backup well.”
It contends that any loss or damage occurred without negligence or wrongdoing on the part of Dillon and was caused by the town’s employees and subcontractors. The company also contends that the municipality failed to “communicate to Dillon, in a timely manner, it intended to use the Grafton Well to supplement its main water source on a routine basis,” and that the town failed to “operationalize the Grafton Well as an emergency backup well promptly following completion of its construction in 2021.”
Dillon is asking the courts to dismiss the case with costs.
In the town’s response to Dillon, filed on Aug. 19, the municipality denies the claim that the Grafton well was “only intended to serve as an interim or temporary backup well and states that the new water source that the Defendant was retained to identify and develop was intended to support and, if necessary, replace the existing infrastructure,” noting that Woodstock relied on Dillon’s “representations as to its expertise and guidance in the identification and verification of a new water source and the design and construction of the Grafton Well.”
The Town of Woodstock is asking for:
- Special damages for the extra expenses incurred by the Plaintiff to remediate and/replace the Grafton Well;
- Damages for the breach of contract and negligence;
- Damage
- The cost of this action
- Such other and further relief as the Honourable Court may deem just.
(With files from the late Jim Dumville)
