Township council has a authorized staff to submit an expression of interest for funding under the Small Communities Fund for $1.32 million for the 2016 Wastewater Lagoon Capacity Expansion Project.
The Small Communities Fund focuses on highways or major roads (including bridges), public transit, disaster mitigation, connectivity or broadband, innovation, wastewater, green energy, drinking water, solid waste management, brownfield redevelopment, local and regional airport, short line rail, and short sea shipping.
The program is a two-stage process including an expression of interest followed by a formal application for those selected at the expression-of-interest stage.
In a report to council at the Sept. 8 meeting, public works director Brad McRoberts said the lagoon expansion project was one of two 2016 capital projects from the township’s five-year capital plan that could potentially meet the program criteria.
However, he noted, in 2014 the township applied to the same fund for a water tower project in Drayton and was unsuccessful in getting beyond the expression of interest stage.
Reasonable chance
“In consideration of the expression of interest criteria, both the wastewater and water tower projects are being driven by growth, however an argument could be made that the wastewater expansion would be achieving more stringent criteria and therefore provide more environmental protection,” started McRoberts in his report. “The wastewater project would likely be the only project that would provide a reasonable chance of success.”
Mayor Neil Driscoll said “It’s pretty straightforward. We’re going to throw our name in the hat with many other municipalities.
“It’s too bad they would split this funding up – this for municipalities of 100,000 (population) or less. If it was 50,000 or less, it might be a different ranking.”
The Small Communities Fund requires municipalities to contribute one-third of the funding for approved projects, while the federal and provincial governments each provide a third.
