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Tottenham’s water pipeline tender awarded by Council

April 24, 2020   ·   0 Comments

The Tottenham water pipeline project is moving forward as the Town of New Tecumseth awarded its tender at Monday night’s Council meeting

Construction to the water pipeline is expected to start shortly and be commissioned in the spring of 2022.

“It’s been almost a decade since three or four members of this Council started working for this project, it’s been a long time coming [and] I know the people of Tottenham are looking forward to it,” Ward 4 Councillor Fran Sainsbury noted.

She said a resident’s request to have the Ministry of the Environment review the Town’s master water plan, in an effort to best fix Tottenham’s water quality issues, severely delayed the project and was a learning experience.

“It held up 18 months of this project and made it cost $3 million more to debenture, where the money could have been spent on other projects,” Sainsbury said.

“I realize they have a legal right to do it, but I think this has taught us a good lesson about delays, about costs, about overruns, and about how much more we would have to debenture over time,” she continued. “I hope that we’ll really take this seriously for any project in the future because time is money and this was quite a bit.”

There were concerns from the public that this project could be further delayed, as many construction projects have been stopped due to COVID-19, said Ward 8 Councillor Alan Lacey.

“Just to alleviate people’s concerns with COVID-19, even though there’s a hold on many construction projects, because this involved water, waste water, our infrastructure, it’s continuing even though many are shutdown,” he explained.

Vatri, Director of Engineering for the Town, said municipal staff have confirmed through its solicitor that the water pipeline construction is eligible as an essential work project.

He also noted that the contractor for the project is aware of restrictions with COVID-19 and said they can move forward.

The supplier has confirmed the project’s materials are available to start on time as well.

By Sam Odrowski
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

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