Town to apply for grant funding

Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter

 

The Town of Strathmore is now able to apply for financial assistance through the Small Communities grant from the government. There are two projects to be sent forward for approval, one of which is the east Strathmore reservoir.
“We estimate the cost of this project be approximately $6 million. The second project is for the mainline sewer … from Orchard Park to the Waste Water Treatment Plant,” said Director of Corporate Services Mel Tiede.
There is not currently a firm engineering estimate, but Tiede said it has been suggested that, depending on timing, the project will cost between $2.5 and $3.5 million.
When asked his opinion on how successful the town will be on being given the grant, Tiede said he believes the town will be somewhat successful, and may not get all of the funding they are requesting but will get some funding.
Because of the state of the economy the plan would be to move forward as quickly as possible if funding is approved. Grant funding comes in three parts; a third is federally funded, a third is provincially funded and a third would be locally funded.
Councillor Steve Grajczyk raised concerns about being obligated to complete the project even if the town is not able to come up with its portion of the funding.
Tiede said to keep in mind that the town had anticipated borrowing $3 million to complete the roads projects, which they may no longer need, which could allow for additional borrowing capabilities without going to extreme amounts.
“The new reservoir is very important, if you look back at our plans for quite a few years we’re to build a big reservoir on the west side that’s complete and working well, then we were to build one on the east side,” said Chief Administrative Officer Dwight Stanford.
“Another thing is we’re planning on spending over a million dollars to upgrade the Brentwood pump station and if we could get approval to do the (east reservoir) we could just sort of do some minor repairs to keep it going without spending the whole million dollars to upgrade it.”
Stanford thinks the upgrades will only buy a few more years on the Brentwood reservoir before it would need more repairs and upgrades.
The $6 million price tag would also include a road going from Centennial Drive (from the Brentwood Pump Station), to across George Freeman Trail into wherever the new reservoir will be located. A motion was made and approved to apply for the Small Communities grant, and to approve the projects pending financial approval.