MORRISBURG – Using funds previously set aside to investigate expanding South Dundas water services into North Dundas, South Dundas is now looking in a new direction.
Instead of investigating a northward expansion, South Dundas council agreed with a staff recommendation to embark on a capacity study within South Dundas, specifically for the Morrisburg Waste Water Treatment Plant, Iroquois WWTP and the Morrisburg/Iroquois Water Treatment Plant.
“This study will provide valuable information for potential growth and quantity of wastewater/ volume of water our system can handle,” said South Dundas chief administrative officer Tim Mills in his report presented to council during their August 28 committee of the whole meeting.
Although funds were not set aside for this study during the 2023 budgeting process, council agreed to the reallocation of the $50,000 set aside for the North Dundas investigation to this capacity study. The 2024 and 2025 budgets are likely to include allocations totalling $130,000 to complete all of the study tasks as presented in the EVB proposal.
Mills’ report outlined that sole-source purchasing can be used when a competitive process would be impractical or uneconomical and when one supplier can meet the specifications or technical requirements, possess unique skills or meet the required deadline.
As such, staff engaged EVB Engineering who submitted a proposal to provide engineering services relating to the water and wastewater infrastructure servicing the villages of Morrisburg and Iroquois.
The capacity study will take into account vacant property owned by the municipality and agencies, Mills explained.
“This study will give us invaluable information for growth,” he said.
South Dundas deputy mayor Marc St. Pierre agreed, commenting: “This is part of our investment to help with the growth.”
He suggested that they should first focus on the areas where developments are proposed.
Councillor Danielle Ward suggested that some of these studies could be done concurrently to speed up the process.
Councillor Tom Smyth spoke about the funding that will become available to municipalities.
CAO Mills reiterated the importance of getting moving on gathering this information so that the municipality is ready with data to support any funding opportunities that may become available.
Mills told The Leader that the reallocation of the $50,000 from the initiation of the North Dundas expansion study does not mean that is off the table. “At this point, our number one priority is our own water/wastewater capacity,” he said. “We are getting a lot of interest and there’s a lot of development in the works.”
Right now they are working at piecing together all the information they can to optimize all of that ongoing interest.