Balsor, Eaglecrest water project gets green light

BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

The magic number of interested residents has signed on and a proposed municipal water service extension to help residents in the vicinity of the Balsor and Eaglecrest subdivisions will proceed. Residents in the area have been plagued with poor water quality and quantity.

Ken Belfountain, who played an integral role in lobbying his fellow residents to support the service extension, said, as a resident of Balsor, he’s quite pleased the petitioning process was successful and the required 40 per cent of affected residents signed on before the Jan. 10 deadline.

He said a number of neighbours worked hard on this and rallied through the neighbourhood at the last minute to get residents to submit their forms to procure the required percentage of support.

Because of issues with water quantity and quality, lots of residents require municipal water service. Although he’s pleased it went through, Belfountain recognizes that financing is a big concern.

“Lots of residents were sympathetic, even if they weren’t affected personally by quality and quantity problems,” he said.

Although the affected subdivisions are within the county, they lie south of Kentville. Once the infrastructure is built, it will be turned over to the Kentville Water Commission to operate and maintain.

Proceed with as much haste as possible

Kings County Engineering and Public Works director Richard Lloyd reported to council at the January committee of the whole session that slightly more than the required number of affected residents had signed on by the deadline. He expects the project will be completed by the end of 2008.

“The project will proceed with as much haste as possible,” Lloyd said. “We will spend the provincial portion before March (as was stipulated by the province when provincial funding was announced).”

Lloyd said no petitions in favour were received from Ward Avenue. Therefore, it was decided to reduce the scope of the project in order to optimize the cost to other residents in Balsor and Eaglecrest.

In terms of project funding, he said the county is providing $821,000; the province is providing $425,000 under the Provincial Capital Assistance Program (PCAP); $71,000 comes from the federal-provincial Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund; and there’s a residential funding component of $1,146,000 for an estimated total project cost of $2,463,000.

Councillor Chris Parker, who represents the area, asked Lloyd if the county would be asking the province for more funding in the next budget year, but Lloyd said there was no council direction for that. Warden Fred Whalen pointed out that the $400,000-plus PCAP contribution was the most funding ever given under the program (representing 10 per cent of the 2007-2008 provincial PCAP budget).

Enormous contribution

Kings South MLA David Morse said it was an enormous contribution from the modest PCAP budget and represented about eight times what he was expecting on a constituency basis. He said he was very pleased the Warden made it clear early on that the county would be in for one-third of the project through federal gas tax funding, and residents of the affected area appreciate that support.

Morse said it’s so important the community have access to municipal water at less than half the cost it would have been without the government grants. However, he said the residents rolled up their sleeves and talked to their neighbours about following through on their verbal commitment to support the project.

“This has been their focus for months, if not years,” Morse said. “They’re thrilled to death. It can only be seen as a positive for the residents.”

Morse pointed out that the county is willing to finance the resident’s share over 10 years and the county carries the capital cost of running the infrastructure past the homes until such time those property owners choose to subscribe, if they didn’t choose to do so from the outset.

Parker said residents are paying $3,200 more for their hook-up than they would have if the province had matched the municipal funding and he thought it was disgraceful the province didn’t come through. If funding were matched, the hook-up cost for residents would be reduced to between $5,500 and $5,800. Otherwise, the cost could be in the vicinity of $9,000.

“People are drinking poison water,” he said, pointing out that others have to truck water in. “We’ve done more than our bit,” he said of the county.

He said he would make a motion in February to request more provincial funding. Otherwise, he said, every Kings County resident will subsidize this project because the province didn’t come through with more. He said the county carries the interest portion.

Parker had said earlier he didn’t think the project would go through, even though he thought it should, because residents were saying it was too expensive. Parker said he was able to convince his council colleagues to put forward twice the funding the province put forth and council made this a priority.