Ontario Construction News staff writer
The Town of Collingwood hosted an official groundbreaking for a $270 million water treatment plant expansion last week.
Construction was awarded to Kenaidan in April and work is expected at least six years, adding drinking water capacity for thousands of businesses and homes in Collingwood, the Town of New Tecumseth and The Blue Mountains.
“It’s a truly monumental project,” Collingwood CAO Sonya Skinner said at the groundbreaking. “It’s a new era of secure, sustainable, residential, commercial and industrial opportunities for Collingwood and our partner municipalities for 25 years and beyond.”
Planning for the expansion started in 2016 and early estimates set the cost at $60 million, however, the budget was revised several times, reaching $270 million when the contract was awarded.
The Town of New Tecumseth is covering 63 per cent of the cost of the plant expansion and will use 250 cubic metres a day, transported through a 60-kilometre pipeline from the Collingwood plant. New Tecumseth has been getting drinking water from Collingwood since 1999.
“It opens so many doors. Now, we’re going to have more growth. We’re going to have more housing,” said New Tecumseth Mayor Richard Norcross. “We’re going to have more business, more opportunities,” New Tecumseth’s mayor said. “We’re going to bring the best, cleanest water that we can to all our residents along the pipeline.”
Expanding the Raymond A. Barker Water Treatment Plant is considered a significant undertaking that “represents our shared commitment to ensuring the availability of clean safe water for our communities for many years to come,” town officials said in a news release. Without the expansion, the town would not be able to build new homes to meet provincial housing targets or support job creation with commercial and industrial growth.
“This expansion is an essential and urgent project for Collingwood, New Tecumseth, and the surrounding area.”