$5.3M upgrade for city’s waste water treatment plan
The city’s wastewater treatment plant will be reducing its carbon footprint thanks to more than $5 million in government funding.
The federal, provincial and municipal governments have all pitched in to upgrade Peterborough Waste Water Treatment Plant’s clarifier tanks and blowers.
Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef, Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal and Mayor Daryl Bennett announced the funding at the plant on Kennedy Road on Tuesday.
On behalf of Amarjeet Sohi, minister of infrastructure and communities, Monsef declared a $2,678,132 federal contribution.
Representing Bob Chiarelli, Ontario minister of infrastructure, Leal announced $1,339,066 in provincial support.
And the city is kicking in the rest of the cash to finance the remainder of the plant’s $5.3-million project, Bennett said.
Daryl Stevenson, the chief operator of the city’s wastewater treatment plant, said a large amount of electricity is used in the tanks to provide oxygen to the bacterial process.
Funds will be used to make air blowers and oxygen delivery more efficient.
“Therefore making our carbon footprint much smaller,” Stevenson said.
With some tanks dating back to the 1930s, Stevenson said upgrades to the facility were greatly needed.
“The project had been sitting in a holding pattern ready to go, we just needed to get the finals stamps to put it all into action,” Stevenson said.
Now that those stamps have come through, the chief operator said the repairs and upgrades will start next week. The project is expected to finish in late 2018.
Without the support of the provincial and federal governments, Bennett said the city would have to raise about $4 million in taxpayer revenues to cover the cost of the project.
Thanks to the two governments significant contributions, the plant can roll ahead with the needed changes.
“We can now upgrade to a much more modern standard and we can make better use of the equipment we have to bring out a better product, which is clean water exiting the plant,” Bennett said.
Leal pointed out the importance of government tiers working collectively on expensive projects, such as the plant upgrades.
“The only way municipalities can really address these projects and pay for them is to have three levels of government working together,” Leal said.
The federal government’s contribution to the plant is part of its $180 billion in spending on infrastructure over the next 12 years, Monsef said.
Investing in infrastructure that’s responsible for returning clean water to waterbeds is critical, Monsef said.
“Not just for our health and well being today, but to make sure that our communities continue to stay vibrant so that many more generations can benefit from them,” she said.