With Cranbrook’s Gold Creek Dam in disrepair, the city is pressing the provincial and federal governments to help out financially.
The dam used to have around 30 megalitres of water storage, but that’s now down to one or two megalitres.
“There is virtually no holding capacity,” said Mayor Wayne Price.
“That’s supposed to support our major dam, the Phillips dam and at this point in time it it really doesn’t. The water just runs through it.”
Once reconstructed it’s expected to hold approximately 200 megalitres of water.
The city has already invested over $1 million in planning and design for the dam reconstruction, but the total project cost is much higher.
“We’ve identified the cost of the project to be around $14 million and that’s why we’re going down to Victoria to basically plead to the government to support our initiative,” said Price.
On April 2, the federal government announced $6 billion in new money in a new infrastructure fund to help tackle Canada’s housing crisis.
Money from this grant can go towards upgrading water, wastewater, stormwater and solid waste infrastructure and the first $1 billion will go towards shovel-ready urgent infrastructure needs.
“We are prepared to act and can meet the requirements laid out with this new funding announced last week,” says Mayor Price.
“We implore the federal and provincial governments to step up and recognize the investment we have already made to prepare and plan for the immense risks around Cranbrook’s water supply, and our ability to supply fire flow and safe drinking water to our community, by providing critical infrastructure funding for this important water supply asset.”
If the city does not receive grant funding, Price said the project will have to be funded through borrowing.
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