PICTOU – County council is going ahead with plans to install sewer lines in the Plymouth area.
Municipality of Pictou County Warden CAO Brian Cullen said council recently met with provincial transportation staff who indicated that the East River East Side Road is scheduled to be paved this year.
He said transportation has been holding off on doing this road because it was waiting on the municipality to get the sewer project done first, but the time has come to address the issue.
One option for the county is to install 3.4 kilometres of sewer lines on East River East Side Road, near the old Westray Mine site heading towards Plymouth. Upgrades will also be done to the pumping station in Blue Acres and a new force main will be installed near the Esso service station and the another near Park Street, New Glasgow. He estimated it would cost about $2.7 million to do this work while an additional $700,000 would be needed to connect side roads.
Cullen suggested that council concentrate on the main road for now and phase in other areas later.
“The work in Blue Acres needs to be done,” said Plymouth area Coun. Andy Thompson. “This is a good first step for us. All I can say to the residents not being hooked up is that hopefully there will a federal infrastructure program announced soon.”
Councillors agreed to spend $2.7 million of its gas tax money on the project. Council currently has $2.5 million in gas tax money sitting in its reserves and will receive an additional $1.5 million over the next few months. All of this money has to be spent or allocated by March 2014.
Gas tax money can only be used for certain projects and many of the guidelines focus on green energy.
In addition to the Plymouth paving project, county council will also spend $1.3 million on the Riverton wind project.
“When we started looking at funding opportunities for these projects, the gas tax has shown potential,” said Cullen. “It must all be used by March 31, 2014. You can apply for extensions but all of the extension money must be spend by 2016.”
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