CBS to divert funds to save coast around Cronin’s Head

By Craig Westcott/November 18, 2021

CBS council voted Tuesday to reallocate a portion of the capital works road money it has on hand to an effort to stabilize the coastline near the wastewater treatment plant at Cronin’s Head in Kelligrews.

Council also approved a $30,500 contract for AFN Engineering Inc. to provide consulting services in advance of the work.

“The shoreline adjacent to the Town’s sanitary sewer treatment plant has eroded over the last several years,” said Ward 3 councilor Gerard Tilley, who chairs the public works committee. “Snowmageddon in 2020 and the storm surge in 2021 has accelerated erosion in this particular area.”

Tilley said the plant is adjacent to the eroded shoreline and that makes it a priority for council to prevent further erosion in order to protect that infrastructure. 

“Our preliminary review estimate is that the project will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $750,000,” he added. “We anticipate this work will commence in late winter or early spring following all the applicable permit approvals.”

The motion to ask the Department of Municipal Affairs for permission to move that amount of money from the Town’s multi-year capital works fund, which in this case was earmarked for street upgrading and paving, to the shoreline stablization project came up later in the meeting, during the finance committee report.

Deputy Mayor Andrea Goose, who chairs finance, made the motion with Tilley seconding it and the rest of council passing it unanimously.

In other capital works and finance news, Gosse said the Town is applying to the provincial Municipal Capital Works Program for $15 million to build a new public works depot. The motion to make the application also passed unanimously.