The city of North Battleford is on track to complete the expansion of Water Treatment Plant No. 1 well before the deadline of July 29th.
The exterior of the building is now complete, according to the city. Contractor Miners Construction is currently working on the interior, which is housing four flocculators and two clarifiers, both used to mix and properly settle water treatment chemicals. So far it seems that work is coming along as well.
"They have all the walls built," said North Battleford marketing and communications coordinator Mike Halstead. "They are constructing some offices on the upper level of the building."
On the main level they have "all the equipment necessary for purifying our water in place," he said. The expansion should be finished by the end of June, well ahead of the July 29 deadline, according to Halstead.
The deadline was extended to July 29 by the federal government in response to requests from municipalities for more time to meet the federal infrastructure funding deadlines, as infrastructure projects had been delayed in much of the province by wet weather and flooding. The feds are funding approximately one-third of the costs with the province and city also contributing one-third of the estimated $6.9 million cost.
North Battleford was one of the communities helped by the extension as construction was slowed by precipitation.
Completing it in time was "impossible," said Halstead, because of the heavy rain.
The project is being built in order to meet the city's increasing water demands. Treatment expansion is being increased by 218 cubic metres per hour and the total water treatment expansion once the project is complete will increase to 381.5 cubic metres per hour. The actrual building expansikon is 559.5 square metres.
Halstead also expects to see a test run of the new expansion once it is completed
