Province doubles funds for Holyrood water tank
By Mark Squibb
While they spent most of the past month and a half treading their way through water woes due to failing pumps and leaking lines, at least one piece of good news floated to the surface for Holyrood councillors in August: an additional one million dollars in provincial funding was approved for the construction of a water tank.
That allowed council to call a special meeting to award the tender for the project.
The project had been initially approved in June of 2020 at a cost of $1.6 M with the federal government contributing $581,813 and the provincial government $727,267, leaving the Town to fund $145,453.
Project costs, however, soon began to rise. The acquisition of Crown land at Tank Road, the civil work required to connect the tank to the existing data system, the development of the concrete pad to support the tank, and the installation of the tank itself, along with the piping connections, proved more costly than initially thought, and so the Town went back to the Province to ask for more money. The Province complied, increasing its contribution from $727,267 to $1,866,640.
Public works committee chairman Steve Winsor said without the funding increase, the Town probably would have had to break the project into phases, which would have stretched the construction over a number of years.
“It’s a very substantial increase, and this has made it possible for the Town to proceed with and complete the project in its entirety rather than having to phase out the work and leave certain important components to a future project,” Winsor said.
While the federal contribution remains the same, the Town will pitch in an additional $126,696 to maintain it’s 10 percent cost commitment. That money will be budgeted in 2027, and will bring Holyrood taxpayers’ total commitment to about $272,000.
“Due to a variety of technical challenges with the delivery of the project, and especially considering significant increases in construction costs and material costs over the last number of years, it has taken considerable time and effort to bring this important initiative to the point where we can now confidently say that we’re moving into the final phase toward actual completion,” said Winsor.
Council voted to award the construction tender for the 500,000 gallon tank, along with the holding pad, to Greatario Industrial Storage Systems for $1,238,550 for the tank plus $1,342,050 for the pad for a total of $2,580,600, HST included.
The new water tank will double the town’s water capacity.
All the same, councillor Bruce King said residents will still need to learn to conserve water.
“Even as we move forward into the future, we still have to conserve water,” said King. “People have to still look at water as a very valuable resource.”
Mayor Laura Crawley concurred.
“It doesn’t matter how much water is in that tank, if people are draining it, and not bothering to look at the use of it, it’s no good,” said Crawley.
The mayor said the project tripled in cost since its inception owing to higher materials and transportation prices.