After more than a decade, work will soon begin to upgrade Keremeos’ wastewater treatment plant.

Keremeos council unanimously voted to award the contract for the first phase of the project to Carver Construction at their meeting on Feb. 22.

The contract is funded entirely through grants from the province, with $3.95 million from the Strategic Priorities Fund and $688,000 through a grant for structural flood mitigation.

“It’s something that we’ve all been working towards, particularly staff, for a long time, have been working on this for so long and it’s hard to believe it’s finally here,” said mayor Manfred Bauer.

READ MORE: Keremeos moving towards $3.9M new wastewater treatment plant

The work is not expected to impact the day-to-day function of the existing wastewater treatment plant. The upgrades are planned to be built as additions to the existing infrastructure.

Some of the project’s projected $4.6 million total cost, including engineering costs and Ecofluid Design costs, have already been done and included in previous budgets.

The first phase of work is aimed to begin this year and to be completed by 2023.

The second and final phase of construction work is currently expected to be done in 2024 but is dependent on the village receiving grant funding for the work.

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