The Jackfish Road in the RM of Meota is one of the areas that will see improvements. (RM of Meota website)

By Angela Brown

Infrastructure upgrades

RM of Meota, Blaine Lake to receive support from province

Jul 14, 2023 | 5:27 PM

A number of communities in the rural areas of the northwest region will benefit from more infrastructure funding coming from the province.

The Rural Integrated Roads for Growth (RIRG) program grants cover up to 50 per cent of each project’s total cost, to a maximum of $500,000.

Blaine Lake will see bridge and culvert project improvements, with $163,176 from the province. The RM of Meota will receive $500,000 for the province’s investment in road upgrades. Redberry will benefit from $350,000 for road improvements.

“In Saskatchewan, there are 26,000 kilometres of provincial highways. But if you add all the roads under the municipal jurisdiction, especially our grid-road system which is extensive, to say the least, there are a lot of roads and a lot of infrastructure to cover in the province,” Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill said. “So the RIRG program is really a way we cost-share important improvements with different rural municipalities around the province.”

In total, the province is investing $13 million this year for 34 different projects to benefit 31 rural municipalities in Saskatchewan.

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“There are some good projects in here that will obviously support residents, but also support producers getting their products to market,” Cockrill added.

He noted earthwork and graveling work is being done on the Jackfish Road, which runs north from Highway 26, on the west side of Jackfish Lake for the Meota area project.

“That would be a fairly well-used road for people to go north to Meota or to access Martinson’s Beach or Aquadeo. That’s a busy road in the RM of Meota. So, it’s a good-sized project that we’re contributing there, and making that investment with them,” Cockrill said.

RM of Meota Reeve Sherry Jimmy told battlefordsNOW she is thrilled to see the Meota project approved for funding.

“We’re pretty excited about that,” she said.

A six-kilometre portion of the Jackfish Grid Road will be fixed in the project.

“It involves the reconstruction of the Jackfish Grid [Road],” Jimmy said. “We had redone the first mile over the last few years. And now [the work is being picked up] from where we left off. It extends the road rehabilitation to the junction of the L’Heureux Road that leads to Aquadeo.”

“In some places, the road is lower than the adjacent fields, which causes the road to drift in severely in the winter,” she added. “There is an intersection that is a concern on the Ness Road. There is no clear line of site at the Ness Road, which causes a safety concern. And there are some areas through some sloughs that need to be built up because of the water on both sides.”

The work is slated to be done in 2024. The total value of the project is estimated at about $1.2 million, with $500,000 coming from the province and the remainder from RM.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow