By Katherine Svenkeson

Council applies for $10 million sewer grant

Jan 19, 2017 | 4:00 PM

A special council meeting had mayor and council spending their lunch hour discussing a grant worth $10 million dollars.

A grant under the Provincial Territorial Infrastructure Component – Clear Water Wastewater Fund (PTIC-CWWF) was the topic of discussion. If successful in the application, the city would receive partial funding for a much needed sanitary sewer truck pipeline.

City manager Jim Puffalt said there is a bottleneck where sanitary lines cross currently sitting underneath the river valley. While it’s currently sustained the city needs to look at fixing this before it comes too much of an issue years down the line, he said.

“What happens if there’s too much of a major rain event? There’s the potential of sewage not being able to go down as quickly and it may cause some issues,” Puffalt said. “The other thing that comes along with that is we’re trying to grow and develop in the Fairview areas. The capacity issues are starting to come. We’re fine for the next five to 10 years, but again we have to be prepared for 10 years from now.”

The project is projected to cost $13.6 million, and the grant under PTIC CWWF would cover 75 per cent of that. Puffalt said the chances of the grant being approved are very high, as the city has a lot of the planning set out and the project fits all the required areas.

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The city would have to pay for the remaining $3.6 million in costs, and talks continued about looking into long term debt.

“This is too large of a project,” Puffalt said. “I mean a $13.6 million project, it’s huge. You don’t often do those unless you’re building something major. That’s what we were talking about with council [during budget], that they don’t have an issue with long-term debt increasing if it’s for a project that’s long term. As Coun. Lightfoot said, this will be used for the next 100 years, providing service to North Battleford.”

Council approved the motion to submit the grant application in, and will hear word from the federal government in the coming months.

Katherine Svenkeson is a reporter with battlefordsNOW. She can be reached at katherine.svenkeson@jpbg.ca or on Twitter @ksvenkeson.

by Katherine Svenkeson

Council applies for $10 million sewer grant

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