$17 million in provincial funding is supporting critical water infrastructure work in North Bay, Mattawa and Nipissing Township.
Vic Fedeli, Nipissing MPP, announced the money at the city’s wastewater treatment plant on Memorial Drive.
“This is critical funding for these municipalities to be able to do the work that they need to do,” he says. “Here in North Bay, it’s almost $12 million. In Mattawa, $5 million. They will build a housing subdivision because of the sewer and water they can put in.”
Mayor Peter Chirico says the city’s share is going towards a $16 million project to prevent recurring flooding at the plant.
“In 2019 and 2024 we were within inches of this facility being flooded,” he says. “If it floods it shuts down our entire sewer system in the City of North Bay and almost 17,000 residential and business customers would be affected.”
Mattawa Mayor Raymond Belanger says it feels like the town has won the lottery.
Their money will build a reservoir and other water works that will allow for a new housing subdivision.
He says it’ll include 100 building lots with 200-300 new housing units.
It’s a 35% expansion of our town. The actual area itself is one third of our landmass,” he says. “That’s going to be huge for our tax base increase. It’s going to be huge to help us maintain the services we provide.
Belanger says it’ll likely still be ten years before the entire subdivision is finished.
Nipissing Township, meantime, receives over $980,000 for a culvert replacement project.
