Rock tunnel a go--really.Greater Sudbury Greater Sudbury (2006 census population 157,857) is a city in Northern Ontario, Canada. Greater Sudbury was created in 2001 by amalgamating the cities and towns of the former Regional Municipality of Sudbury, along with several previously unincorporated geographic townships. -- Construction gets underway this fall on major upgrades to Sudbury's sanitary sewer A sanitary sewer (also called, especially in the UK, a foul sewer) is a type of underground carriage system for transporting sewage from houses or industry to treatment or disposal. system designed to permit more commercial and residential development in the city's fast-growing south end. A long-awaited sanitary rock tunnel received city council approval in June with the awarding of the tender to Hamilton's McNally Construction, a leading Canadian tunnelling contractor, for $28.2 million. Alan Stephen, the City of Greater Sudbury's general manager of infrastructure and emergency services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' , says the overall $31-million project should provide many subcontracting opportunities for area contractors and suppliers over the three-year life of the project. Some pre-construction surveys start in mid-August, with the actual work commencing in September. The rock tunnel project has been under discussion since 1999, after sewer capacity in the city's south end was maxed out and a freeze was imposed on all future development. Stephen says the south end has been experiencing severe sewer capacity problems since the late 1990s. Without provincial funding of $8.4 million, all development would have been indefinitely frozen. Some options were on the table, including updating or expanding their existing systems or building a rock tunnel collector system, the latter being the least expensive and disruptive alternative. The city's sanitary sewer systems already connect into an existing 40-year-old rock tunnel. This extension will move sewage to a new treatment plant for release into the environment. The 6.5-kilometre-long tunnel will have an average depth of 25 metres with dimensions of 1.5 m wide by 2.1 m high. Construction of the tunnel would eliminate six sewage lift stations. Expensive delays The project's original 2001 price tag jumped from $22.5 million to more than $31 million due to delays and changes in construction requirements and legislation, inflation, additional engineering design work, insurance costs and additional property acquisition costs. The city is also in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of a large road reconstruction and widening effort. About $21 million in COMRIF COMRIF Canada-Ontario Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund funding (Canada-Ontario Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund) was awarded to Sudbury last April for work along The Kingsway, Falconbridge Road, and Municipal Roads 15 and 80. This fall, the city will apply for a second phase of funding with a bundled road package worth more than $80 million for reconstruction projects on Maley Drive ($36 million), Municipal Road 35-Kingsway-Notre Dame, ($32 million) and South Bay Road, an extension of Regent Street
Regent Street is a major shopping street and thoroughfare in London's West End. ($10 million). A third round of COMRIF has not yet been announced, but city officials are hopeful it will be expanded to include waste management infrastructure and building upgrades to improve environmental and energy efficiency. "We're hoping this next round will allow us to work in the area of leisure services, building new community centres, rinks, pools and conference centres." "Given that we are the largest community of under 200,000 (population) communities, we stand a good chance of meeting government requirements and getting between $30 million and $40 million each round." The ambitious program is long overdue for Sudbury's neglected arterial roads Noun 1. arterial road - a major or main route highway, main road - a major road for any form of motor transport Britain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe . "The city has gone through some lean times and the infrastructure is rather fragile, roads and underground transportation systems (that is), so it's a huge dilemma for us," says Stephen. "The other is the geographical size of the city at 3,600 square kilometres Square kilometre (U.S. spelling: square kilometer), symbol km², is a decimal multiple of the SI unit of surface area, the square metre, one of the SI derived units. 1 km² is equal to:
We're the only community in the country that draws from two water sources, 17 wells and 74 lift stations. It's an amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. undertaking because of the size and the municipal amalgamation. "Every community faces infrastructure challenges--it's billions of dollars, but given our land mass and population base, we have our own challenges and that's what we're trying to come to grips with." www.greatersudbury.ca. ww.comrif.ca By IAN ROSS Ian Ross is the name of:
Northern Ontario Business Northern Ontario Business is a Canadian magazine, which publishes monthly in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The magazine covers business news and issues in Northern Ontario. |
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