44 homes located directly on Riverside Drive, as well as over 300 homes in the surrounding neighbourhoods will now be protected from the woes of flood events.
The City of Peterborough has just received over 1.5 million dollars from the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund to reconstruct a portion of the sanitary and storm sewer systems.
“The current project will see to it that all of Riverside Drive, right from Monaghan to Cameron, have their sanitary, and storm sewer system replaced,” said the Manager, Design and Construction, of the Utility Services Department, Blair Nelson. In addition it will also see some upgrades on the outlet of the storm sewer system, overland flow route, and improvement to the underground sanitary sewer system, he added.
The grant received was expected to only cover 90% of the total project cost, but at the current point, according to Nelson, the job is budgeted that the fund money is sufficient to carry out the entire project.
Given the circumstances, the city was anticipating on funding the project in question with or without the grant. Now the money previously earmarked for this sewage reconstruction has moved back to become available for other project opportunities, he informed.
In addition, besides the obvious benefit offered to the local residents as well as the adjacent areas in consequence of the upgrades in that area, it also sets out as a building block and foundation for the future projects of the area as well.
According to Nelson, when it actually goes to construction it will also help create some jobs associated with that reconstruction, namely sewer crew, and following that would be the road construction crew, an added benefit of the project.
As part of the flood reduction studies, it was indicated that there was deficiency in the area and recommendations of some upgrades, such as increasing storm sewer sizes in order to allow for larger capacities of storm sewer flows, explained Nelson.
In addition to that, under the inflow of an infiltration study the city also did, there were some improvements recommended to the sanitary sewer system. It was these recommendations that pushed the project forward and required it to become a full reconstruction project, informed Nelson.
When asked why this current area was prioritized as opposed to any other areas, Nelson explained that it was a project the city was already looking at moving forward, and a project that would have the ability to meet the timelines that the province was indicating in terms of utilizing the funding money. Further, it was fairly high on both the flood reduction priorities as well as the inflow and infiltration priorities, and so it was a high priority project for the city.
As for selecting it as the candidate for the application for the funding, Nelson said that it fell within the costing limits as well as the timelines they were available to work within.
The project was described as being fairly straightforward – just a general reconstruction, and upgrading of the infrastructure. However, they did have some discussion over some of the the minor challenges to be expected relating to the work, such as dealing with weather, and adding sidewalks on both sides of the street. There were some concerns raised by the local residents when discussing the design, however, and ultimately they decided on placing a sidewalk only on the north side, says Nelson.
The other challenge, he added, is specifically to do with construction, because of the area and its proximity to the river, fairly wet soil, sandy soil, and ground water.
So, dewatering to enable the contractors to be able to work within the wet conditions are some of the other challenges, he added. Beyond that it is just a matter of executing what they have put to design, says Nelson.
Currently the project is out for tender and the actual work is expected to start some time in the late spring to early summer of 2015. It is anticipated that the majority of the work will be completed throughout the summer term of 2015, with some minor carryovers in 2016.
All in all the project will be wrapped up by early 2016, which is well within the terms of the funding agreement that require the work to be completed by the end of 2016.
