LANCASTER – Glen Walter should go it alone in the future when it comes to its water and sewer needs, a consultant suggested to South Glengarry council, Tuesday night.
But Mayor Frank Prevost isn’t entirely convinced and wants to leave the door open to discussions with servicing from the City of Cornwall.
“I’m not sure if I agree with that 100 per cent (the consultant’s recommendations) only based on, we don’t know what those numbers would be from the City of Cornwall even just taking over our whole water plant at this point. I think we can negotiate in favour of Boundary Road with good numbers with the City of Cornwall,” Prevost told Cornwall Newswatch.
The two municipalities have been negotiating Boundary Road since March 2016.
“The mayor of the City of Cornwall wants this to work and we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure it works.”
EVB Engineering was hired to peer review a consultant’s report from WSP. The peer review was an extra $5,000 on the $144,338 study. Council was not happy with the WSP report in December because it felt it didn’t address future serving for the entire area from Boundary Road to Rae Road and County Road 2 to Tyotown Road.
EVB’s recommendations include a new water storage tank and upgrades to the Glen Walter Water Treatment Plant and “upsizing” portions of the system for fire hydrants. On the sewer side, build an equalization tank to deal with flow from rain events while making upgrades to the Bray Street Pumping Station. The secondary options are having one or both services operated by the City of Cornwall.
Time appears to be running out as the EVB consultants said, by their calculation, the township has already committed to more sewage connections than its sewer plant can handle.
The peer review didn’t seem to appease some on council. Mayor Prevost wanted to get a bigger picture of what it would cost to service the area in the years ahead.
The municipality will now have to map out its entire Glen Walter development area and how many lots could be developed in order to come up with a plan for future water and sewer servicing.
Council received the report from EVB Engineering but didn’t take any next steps Tuesday night.