The Town of Essex is moving ahead with a $2.2-million sanitary sewer upgrade to deal with flooding issues in the town.
SLR Contracting Group Inc. was awarded the contract by council on Monday night.
Mayor Ron McDermott hopes the project appeases frustrated residents.
"I think they're going to be happy," says McDermott. "They've been bashing us for the last year. We had two of those tremendous storms. It definitely was a problem here. Hopefully, it's going to be put to bed."
The project is a major one for the town, but McDermott stresses it's in addition to subsidies already provided by the town to help residents deal with flooding concerns.
He's frustrated more residents haven't taken advantage of the funds available.
"I don't want you people flooding and you don't want to flood either, so get off your back-ends, come and get some of these funds that we have there and get to work on what needs to be done to prevent the flooding," says McDermott. "It's unbelievable the amount of people that have complained about flooding and then we get 4% of them come to get assistance from us — and I'm just guessing at a figure."
Deputy Mayor Richard Meloche calls the project good news for the town.
"It's very exciting because we're that much closer to lifting that interim control by-law that says there's no more construction in the town of Essex," says Meloche. "The residents should be pretty happy that this is moving forward."
The project will see a larger pipe installed along Brien Ave. between Gosfield Ave. and Maidstone Ave. [County Rd. 8] in Essex as well as the construction of a new sanitary sewer forcemain along Fairview Avenue, S Talbot Rd. and across Hwy. 3.
There aren't any official schedules set yet for construction.