FALL RIVER: Residents could see municipal water being brought down Fall River Road sooner rather than later after HRM included it in a list of seven priority infrastructure projects it would like funding for from the federal government.
At its June 21 regional council meeting, councillors approved an original list of six projects, and then added an additional project. The total for the seven projects submitted to the Canadian government is $66.05 million, which if approved would be cost-shared.
Councillor Barry Dalrymple brought a motion to council three weeks ago looking for a staff report to extend the water service boundary down the Fall River Road, and then down Hwy. 2 down as far as Inn on the Lake. Hand-in-hand with that comes putting the project on a priority list of projects HRM would like to see done.
“It’s been a project that I wanted to do since the first day I was elected,” he said.
“Obviously, for a long time, there was zero support federally or provincially. Now, both our MP Darrell Samson and MLA Bill Horne are backing this happening and want to see it come to fruition.
“With them pushing their governments, it very much becomes a possibility.”
He didn’t want to see HRM pass up a likely rare chance to cost-share on a project that would benefit the whole Fall River community.
“This is an opportunity that will probably never come our way again,” said Dalrymple. “It’s unprecedented to have that level and support from the other two levels of government.
“I would like to see this moved to a certain place where it’s irreversible that it will happen.”
With it listed at number on the list of projects being submitted, is Dalrymple worried that it might not have as much credence being that far down. Nope, he’s not.
“The placing on the list means nothing,” he said. “Five years ago, I had bringing water down Fall River Road and bringing water to Monarch Rivendale subdivision in Beaver Bank as numbers one and two on the priority list submitted to the provincial government. It was a different government than what we have now, and they could have cared less. They didn’t look at anything, and the feds who didn’t have an MP of their own here picked putting sidewalks in Sheet Harbour as their project.
“Where you are on the list doesn’t mean anything whatsoever. Our MP and MLA have both committed that their governments want to be a part of this project. All they (the feds and province) needed was to see that it was on the list from HRM.”
