Pat Hoy MPP Chatham-Kent-Essex, John Adams Mayor of Leamington and Dave

The Municipality of Leamington celebrated Earth Week today with an official groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of work on phases 4 and 5 of upgrades to the Leamington Pollution Control Centre. Dave Van Kesteren, Member of Parliament for Chatham-Kent-Essex; Pat Hoy, Member of Provincial Parliament for Chatham-Kent-Essex; and John Adams, Mayor of the Municipality of Leamington are pleased to see this important project get underway. 

The upgrades through phases 4 and 5 will include the construction of new aeration tanks and secondary clarifiers, and will transform an existing aeration lagoon into a wet weather retention pond to hold excess water flow during storms. The project will receive investments of $6 million each from the governments of Canada and Ontario and from the Municipality of Leamington.

“Projects like this demonstrate our commitment to building sustainable communities in Ontario,” said MP Van Kesteren. “By upgrading this pollution control centre, we will preserve Lake Erie’s water quality, keeping our beaches open and our aquatic habitats healthy.”

“We are pleased to have worked in partnership with the federal and provincial governments in order to renew our infrastructure and protect our environment,” said Mayor Adams. “This project will strengthen our role in environmental stewardship for years to come.”

This project is one of 290 across the province that will break ground thanks to a joint federal-provincial investment of over $685 million under the first intake of the Building Canada Fund Communities Component. During these challenging economic times, the governments of Canada and Ontario have taken steps to get shovels in the ground and to flow money faster for infrastructure projects in the 2009 and 2010 construction seasons.