Federal and provincial infrastructure funding has been secured to build a new intake pipeline in Lake Huron to the Petrolia Water Treatment Plant in Bright's Grove.
Petrolia Mayor Brad Loosley said the pipeline will not only benefit his town, but the Township of Enniskillen, Dawn-Euphemia and the Village of Oil Springs who collaborated on the joint application.
"This intake line going out into the lake is in terrible condition, probably approximately 80-years-old and needs to be replaced," Loosley told Sarnia News Today. "We're going an additional 200 meters out, so it will even be a little bit deeper and less work to purify and clean the water."
Local dignitaries gathered Wednesday morning to celebrate the investment under the Green Infrastructure stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program.
"It's a $16.2 million dollar project. We are getting almost $12 million ($11.9 million) from the province and federal government. The province is giving us 33 per cent of the total cost ($5.3 million) and the federal government is giving us 40 per cent ($6.6 million). Without the help from these two levels of government, the Town of Petrolia could never afford to replace this line."
Loosley said the pipeline will sit on the bottom of Lake Huron.
"The concern is with this lake, it doesn't go out and drop off and get deep. It just gradually gets deep as it goes. So that's why we have to go out 600 meters. The one that is there now I believe is 400 meters. So, we're going 200 meters further."
CIMA Canada Engineer Stuart Winchester said the pipeline will be about 24 inches in diameter and include improvements to combat ice.
"We're making the pipeline a little bit bigger to make sure that the flow velocities in the pipe are lower, which will help decrease the risk of frazil ice blockage at the intake," Winchester said.
The pipeline will also include enhanced filtration and preventative measures to deal with zebra mussel buildups.
"We're looking at converting it from what they call a closed system, to an open system, which sees gravity flow from the lake into a wet well on the site with (three, submersible) low lift pumps in the new wet well."
He said the project is still several years away from completion.
Winchester said the planning study and approvals under the environmental assessment act will probably take another year to complete and the detailed design and construction will commence after that.
Upgrades to the plant, at 2701 Old Lakeshore Road, were completed in October 2020.