City waits on federal ‘Building Canada’ funding

The city of Revelstoke is waiting on several applications to the federal Building Canada Fund.

According to Revelstoke’s Director of Engineering and Public Works, Brian Mallett, the city expects a decision on its applications by this September.

“We’ve submitted a number of projects in for funding under the Building Canada fund, and they’ve all been received and they’re all still under review,” said Mallett, who explained that the city has been told to “... expect to hear something in September.”

According to Mallett, the city has submitted a variety of applications in the hopes of receiving funding for local projects ranging from the installation of a heat capture system at Revelstoke’s Aquatic Centre to the construction of a new water reservoir for the city.

“We submitted one for the Fairview Heights sanitary sewer extension,” said Mallett, continuing: “We put in for the Trans-Canada Highway reservoir replacement.

“We put in for the Aquatic Centre: we want to put in a heat recovery system for the building ... so it will become more energy efficient,” explained Mallett.

The city has also applied for funding for the Downey Sanitary lift station.

Given that the city will receive approval for the projects in September, Mallett did acknowledge that for projects like the sewer extension, the city would have to wait for the 2010 building season.

“For some of the projects, it will be too late [for this building season],” explained Mallett. “With the Aquatic Centre, we’ll have to talk to the designer-builders to see if that would be a problem for them working in that kind of October, November timeframe.”

“As far as the sewer project, no, we don’t want to be constructing that kind of project in September, October, we’ll do that in 2010,” noted Mallett.

When asked about how much of a chance the projects stand during the approval process, Mallet explained that city staff do their best to present the federal government with compelling proposals.

“We do the best we can to make a product that answers all their questions and justifies the project and why it should receive funding, but as far as feel goes, as far as I know, all of them have made it through the first cut,” explained Mallet.

“So we’ll wait and see.”