City receives $972,033 to replace the waterline crossing the Illecillewaet

Revelstoke has been approved to receive $972,033 from the provincial and federal governments for the $1,171,125 Illecillewaet Waterline Crossing Project.
The City’s contribution towards this piece of infrastructure is $199,092.

Basically, the City needs to replace the Illecillewaet water main as a section of the main, installed in the bed of the river, is exposed to river flows. Workers will use directional drilling to install a replacement water main far below the bed of the river. This will make the water main less susceptible to damage.

The City has wanted to build this for sometime. But the cost of proceeding by itself was prohibitive. But it became feasible under the Canada-BC Clean Water and Wastewater Fund (CWWF). That program supports the rehabilitation of community drinking water and wastewater infrastructure and the planning and design of future systems that meet drinking water and wastewater effluent standards.
Under the CWWF, the feds have allocated $225,067,721 to British Columbia under the CWWF and will fund up to 50 per cent of the eligible project costs. Victoria will provide up to $148.5 million and will fund 33 per cent of the eligible project costs. Local governments like Revelstoke will provide the remainder of the costs. In Revelstoke’s case that amounts to $199,092.
A statement from Infrastructure Canada says that as part of the bilateral agreement between Canada and British Columbia, 144 projects have now been approved for federal funding amounting to more than $186.6 million. Combined with provincial funding of nearly $123.2 million and local government contributions of over $63.4 million, more than $373.2 million will be going toward projects across the province.
These projects are in addition to the 35 CWWF projects announced last September 30 as part of the signing of the Canada-British Columbia bilateral agreement.
Work on the project is expected to begin in June.
Please click here to read the 2015 Water report, which contains more information on Revelstoke’s water needs.