Regional councillors got a glimpse Wednesday of 20 years’ worth of pending multimillion-dollar pipe plans.

Councillors were walked through the Region’s master plan for water and wastewater services, a “road map” for sprucing up those systems through to 2031. All told, it outlines close to $240 million in spending over the next 20 years, which could be pieced in budget by budget.

That process could start this year, said water and wastewater services director Betty Matthews-Malone. While councillors have the final say in what gets built when, she said a few items are pencilled to happen in sooner rather than later.

The master plan calls for upgrades at a Niagara-on-the-Lake pumping station in 2011 at a cost of $730,000, plus new capacity and storage in Port Colborne for a total of $8.2 million.

“It’s a good plan,” Matthews-Malone said.

“It is critical (for water and wastewater). It’s also good planning. It helps you focus on where your priorities are.”

Matthews-Malone said the outline is based on growth projections across Niagara, singling out areas where new homes or businesses could sprout up. It envisions a Niagara region with 545,000 people and 224,000 employees drawing on water and sewers.

The plan outlines $181 million in new wastewater spending and another $58 million for water pipes.

Among the priciest upgrades it proposes are a new wastewater treatment plant in Niagara-on-the-Lake, pencilled in at $43 million in 2016, and upgrades to the plant in Niagara Falls at $40 million in a year to be decided.

On the water side, the plan proposes $14 million for additional floating storage in Grimsby, also in a year to be determined. Closer to St. Catharines, the list includes increasing the raw water supply capacity at the DeCew water treatment plant, expected in 2017 at a price of $7.6 million.

The most distant projected work on the list would see a water pumping station in Welland beefed up in 2027.

Any new pipes and pumps coming in would join a system Matthews-Malone said handled 59 million cubic metres of drinking water — the approximate equivalent of 845 Olympic-sized swimming pools — and 73 million cubic metres of sewage last year.

The upgrades are designed with an eye to a system able to handle twice the peak amount of wastewater it faces in dry weather.

Though the schedule will inform the Region’s plumbing priorities going forward, Matthews-Malone said it’s not set in stone and can be adjusted depending on how fast areas of Niagara grow.

“It’s been identified as a road map,” she said.

The final plan still has to come up for final public consultation. Matthews-Malone figured that could happen sometime in the fall.

via A $240-million plan to upgrade Niagara’s water, sewer system – Niagara Falls Review – Ontario, CA.