On June 13, a ceremonial ground-breaking was held near the Ashcroft Legacy Park, as work is set to start on the Village of Ashcroft’s new water treatment plant.
Council members, senior staff, and representatives from Maple Reinders (the primary contractor on the project) and Urban Systems (the contract administrators) were on hand for the ceremony. The site had already been cleared, and work was set to begin in earnest the week of June 18.
“It’s been close to 10 years since Interior Health put us on notice that our water system was inadequate, and didn’t meet the terms of the permit,” says Ashcroft CAO Michelle Allen. “I’m excited and relieved, and happy that users of the Ashcroft water system will finally have safe, clean water.”
Allen—who has worked for the Village for more than 33 years—says the new water treatment plant is the biggest infrastructure project undertaken by the Village during her time there, and probably the biggest one in Ashcroft’s history.
“We hope it can be complete in the early spring of 2019. If it’s completed before the freshet, Boil Water Notices will be a thing of the past, unless there’s a chemical spill upstream, but if there’s an early freshet or the commissioning of the plant is delayed then we could still have notices.” She adds that while the project must be completed by March 2020, the projected completion date of June 30, 2019 is “a reachable and realistic completion date.
“We’re a bit under budget so far, and we expect to be on time. But the [recently imposed U.S.] tariffs are beyond our control, and we don’t know what impact they’ll have.”
In addition to housing the water treatment plant, the building will also contain new washrooms and a laundry facility for the Legacy Park campground.
“It’s a good day for Ashcroft,” says Ashcroft mayor Jack Jeyes. “We’ve waited 10 years for this. We’ll have good, safe drinking water, and this will move us forward in our quest to try to grow our population and attract business.”
editorial@accjournal.ca
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