Ottawa gives Hay River $20.1M toward new water treatment plant

The federal government is using the launch of a new infrastructure fund to commit $20.1 million toward a new water treatment plant for Hay River.

The Build Communities Strong Fund offers an average of $5 billion a year for the next 10 years across the whole of Canada through a mix of new funding and rebranded existing commitments.

Cash for Hay River’s water treatment plant was among 13 investments announced on Tuesday.

Town officials have said the existing plant is nearly half a century old and has reached the end of its life.

In recent years, the plant has struggled to handle muddy water during spring break-up and other issues like THMs, chemicals that triggered a drinking water advisory between November and February.

In November, town staff said the estimated cost of a new treatment plant was $26-28 million. The town said it had asked the federal government to cover 75 percent of that cost – which appears to have resulted in this week’s announcement – and was searching for ways of covering the rest.

“If there was a cheaper option, I’d have found it,” Mayor Kandis Jameson said late last year.

“Things have been changing, standards have changed, and obviously things get old. The car, you can keep it limping along. You put a new roof on it or whatever. But we’re past that point.”

As of 2024, Hay River’s 10-year capital plan – a list of things the town wants to build in the decade ahead – included projects requiring a total of $88 million that the town did not have.

Nineteen of the projects listed in the plan at that time were related to flood and wildfire recovery or mitigation.

Other projects on the list included the Sundog residential and commercial land development project, a new town hall, and work on the dump and golf course.

Ottawa says the Build Communities Strong Fund is a response to these pressures on municipalities, offering what the Liberal government calls “modern and reliable infrastructure to build stronger, more affordable communities.”

The water treatment plant funding comes from one of three streams associated with the fund, the “direct delivery” stream, which is worth $6 billion over 10 years for “regionally significant projects and important local infrastructure.”

A second stream offers funding to territories and provinces. That stream is worth $17.2 billion over 10 years in total, with the NWT set to receive $156 million of that. Yukon and Nunavut are offered similar sums.

A third stream – $27.8 billion over 10 years, exclusively for communities – has been described by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities as a renaming of what was once known as the Gas Tax Fund.

“By improving water quality and water security, the project will help eliminate boil water advisories, improve public health, and support new housing development,” the federal government stated of the water treatment plant investment in a Tuesday news release.

The need for a new plant was “one of the main concerns I’ve heard from residents in Hay River,” NWT MP and Liberal cabinet member Rebecca Alty was quoted as saying.

Mayor Jameson, in a statement, called the announcement “an investment in the future of our region.”

In a statement responding to the Liberals’ launch of the Build Communities Strong Fund, sent after this article was first published, the Conservatives accused the government of “making up for the fact that after a decade of Liberal policies they have made our communities less safe and our healthcare less accessible.” (The party did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the specifics of Hay River’s infrastructure deficit.)

“Conservatives want our infrastructure, homes and health to grow and improve, but the Carney Liberals need to get out of the way and scrap their anti-development laws and unaffordable taxes,” the party stated.

Aastha Sethi contributed reporting.