It's too early to say whether a flood of water main breaks will break the city budget this year but officials concede 2018 is off to a bad start.
Sarnia Finance Director Lisa Armstrong says there have been nearly 50 incidents through the first month-and-a-half.
"So we're at 47 now which is quite a large number early in the year," says Armstrong. "However we are, at this point, able to manage those within our water and sewer budget."
Armstrong says 2015 was a bad year with a total of 132 water main breaks while 2016 and 2017 had 70 to 85.
She admits they don't budget for the worst case scenario when it comes to water main repair because it varies so much from year to year.
