A dozen water facilities in Chatham-Kent could see upgrades in the next couple of years thanks to some new government funding.
A Clean Water and Wastewater Fund (CWWF) has proposed an investment of almost $9.2-million. The money would go towards improvements at drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater facilities within the municipality.
Twelve projects around Chatham-Kent have been pre-approved. The project costs will be split three ways with 50% of funds coming from the Federal Government, 25% from the Province, and the other 25% from The Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commission (CK PUC).
It's expected that the CK PUC will need to invest about $2-million in total, but an exact cost won't be known until all of the designs are completed.
CK PUC General Manager Tim Sunderland says they're going to have to work under tight deadline in order to finish the projects.
"All work has to be done by March 2018," says Sunderland. "The PUC is already activated and [has] moved forward with some projects."
Sunderland says because of the complexity surrounding some of the projects, they wanted to get a head start.
"We have the Ridgetown to Highgate Transmission Main and Booster Station that s already been started," says Sunderland. "We [also] have the electrical upgrade at the Chatham sewage treatment plant that s already been started."
The 12 projects are still subject to approval, but that won't be announced until January 2017.
Sunderland says PUC officials have been in contact with the funding group and so far, everything looks good in terms of securing funding for all the projects.
With files from Jake Kislinsky.