On March 26, the intermunicipal wastewater treatment plant destined for construction in the RM of Ritchot received another big financial boost.
Dignitaries from three levels of government gathered at the CRRC to celebrate the announcement of $51 million in loan investment being offered by the Canadian Infrastructure Bank (CIB).
The CIB is a crown corporation operating at arm’s length from the federal government. Developed in 2017, their mandate is to support municipal governments by providing loans for initiatives related to clean power, green infrastructure, transit, trade and transportation, and broadband.
Attached to these loans are very low interest rates and payback periods that extend beyond what commercial banks offer.
The CEO of CIB, Ehren Cory, flew in from the Toronto branch to help make the announcement.
“Our infrastructure needs [across the country] are growing,” Cory says. “And then we have the backlog of all the highways we need to build, the transit systems, the broadband we all need to be able to work, and the water systems we need to live and work in our communities. And we realize that if we don’t find new and different ways to pay for the stuff, we’re never going to catch up and the gap is only going to get wider.”
The unique collaboration on this shared wastewater treatment plant was first announced in August 2022.
At that time, four southeast Manitoba municipalities came together with a sound and environmentally friendly solution to the problem of outgrowing their municipal lagoons. These municipalities include Niverville and the RMs of Ritchot, Hanover, and Tache.
With representatives from each municipality, the Red-Seine-Rat (RSR) wastewater collaborative was formed to oversee the construction of a $110 million wastewater treatment plant to be located just north of Niverville.
The project, in its entirety, will include a series of lift stations, pump stations, and approximately 90 kilometres of effluent pipeline running to every community in the four municipalities.
The project garnered the interest of both the provincial and federal governments, who in 2022 stepped in to invest $39 million in grant monies. The balance was to be borne by the municipalities.
Since that time, and after undergoing a number of creative design processes, the project has jumped to closer to $190 million according to the RSR’s board chairperson, Jim Funk.
For that reason, the CIB loan announcement was very happily received.
One of the criteria assessed by CIB when determining which projects they will back is the level of population and economic growth the project will support.
Cory cited incidents where city councils have had to deny new building permits since the community no longer had enough water and wastewater infrastructure to sustain further growth. For this reason, he says, many of the projects being supported by CIB are proactive in nature.
But when municipalities don’t yet have the population in place to sustain the loan repayment, CIB also offers risk mitigation.
“We only get paid back based on growth in population in the communities [that it serves],” says Cory. “So if the population doesn’t grow, we can kick it down the road a little further.”
Hanover reeve and RSR board chair Jim Funk saw this announcement as further confirmation that municipal collaboration is the way to go.
“With our four municipalities working together, we can provide the region with wastewater treatment that is typically only afforded to larger urban municipalities,” Funk says. “However, large infrastructure projects come with large capital costs. This is a financial burden we cannot shoulder ourselves. That is why today’s announcement is so important.”
Once complete, Funk adds, the new wastewater treatment facility will help ensure residential growth in the region for the next 30 to 50 years by providing capacity for an additional 12,600 new housing starts.
For Niverville alone, this means that the population could double before a treatment plant expansion would be required.
“It is projected that, over the next ten years, this project will result in nearly $1.9 billion in new capital investment and construction, and some 3,400 new jobs for the region,” Funk says.
The environmental benefits are also noteworthy, since the mechanical plant is expected to provide an overall net C02 emission reduction of 93 percent.
Existing lagoons can be repurposed as holding ponds during periods of high rain. Farmland can continue to be used as farmland without the need to sequester portions of it for lagoon expansions.
“It may rain buckets in Blumenort, but it doesn’t rain buckets in Kleefeld, so we can [release] that water from Blumenort and at the same time hold that water back in Kleefeld so we’re not overwhelming the system that’s here in Niverville,” says Gord Daman, the RSR’s economic development consultant.
At this stage, the shared wastewater treatment plant initiative is catching the eye of other municipalities as well. Talks are currently happening in Steinbach, La Broquerie, and one community in the RM of De Salaberry, all considering the possibility of joining the RSR.
“Because of CIB’s involvement, there’s more options to be able to phase in the [treatment plant],” says Daman. “The way we’ve designed it, they can actually add modules as needed. But the distribution route is already in place. These [effluent] pipes are already running past many of these other communities. They just have to connect in.”
Funk says that the RSR is hoping to go to tender in late fall of this year.
