Construction has started on the multi-community water treatment plant intake replacement project.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Friday for the $16.2 million project at the Bright's Grove Water Treatment Plant (WTP).
The replacement project will restore treatment capacity at the Bright's Grove WTP and maintain a safe drinking water supply system for over 11,200 residents.
Petrolia Mayor Brad Loosley said he's thrilled.
"I wanted to do this for a number of years and it was kind of put on hold because of other things, so I'm really pleased, we've got it tendered out, work is starting to be completed next September," he said.
In 2022, the federal and provincial governments announced they would be providing $11.9 million for the project.
The Town of Petrolia will be providing $4 million for the project.
It was tendered publicly in February with the lowest acceptable bid submitted by Stone Town Construction Limited in April.
Loosley said forecast for the project started in 2005.
"It's been a large project, it's very detailed because it's not just a line out in the lake, there's other improvements that we're making inside as well," he said.
Construction will include a new low-lift pump station, a new 600 millimetre intake pipeline extending approximately 380 metres into Lake Huron and a pre-treatment facility will be installed upstream of the existing membrane filters, to remove grit and turbidity from the raw water and protect membrane filters.
The project will help residents in Petrolia, Enniskillen, Oil Springs, Dawn-Euphemia and a part of Alvinston.
"I'm really pleased to announce that it's going another 300 metres further out than before, which again is a big improvement as far as a little deeper and not worrying about icing and different things," Loosley said.
The design was prepared based on 20-year population projections and included provisions for future upgrades depending on growing demands in the service area.
Programing Engineer from CIMA+ Stuart Winchester said an environmental assessment was completed to confirm the design.
"The design exercise is a relatively straight forward design exercise but we needed to coordinate with Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) and the town to make sure that operations can be comfortable with what we're proposing and they're all fully on board for the work proposed," he said.
On site work will proceed through the year into early next year with in-water works scheduled for spring and summer.
The project is scheduled to be completed at the end of September 2026.
