Town to start water, sewer work

Residents in several parts of Fort Frances can expect to see crews digging up streets in May and June as the town proceeds with the rehabilitation of sanitary sewers and watermains.
The first of these will be work on Williams Avenue, from Scott Street to Church Street, which is scheduled to get underway tomorrow (Wednesday), Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown said yesterday afternoon.
This will see the removal and replacement of the existing watermain. About 15 residences will get temporary water supplies while the work is going on, and a road closure will be required.
Two more projects—the removal and replacement of the sanitary sewer line and watermains on Second Street East, between Shevlin Avenue and Minnie Avenue, and Second Street East, between Crowe Avenue and Frenette Avenue—will follow in the next few weeks.
There also will be 12 smaller jobs (called sanitary spot repairs) throughout town in the next two months.
These will be at Colonization Road West, Third Street West, Church Street, Portage Avenue, Victoria Avenue, Crowe Avenue, Phair Avenue, Fourth Street East, and Scott Street.
Residents in the immediate vicinity of the various rehabilitation sites will receive a notice in their mailboxes prior to the work.
Brown said there may be some very brief disruptions in water and sewer services for residents, but that more extensive projects (like the Williams Avenue and Scott Street work) will see residents getting temporary water supplies hooked up to their homes.
At certain times during construction, residents may experience short-term closures and traffic will be re-rerouted, or roads will be restricted to a single lane traffic, added Brown.
He noted every summer sees road work and pipe repairs, but this year will be different than last in that all work definitely will be completed by the end of June.
“This is the time to do it. It’ll be nice to get it all done now,” he remarked.
The contractor undertaking this work is LBL Contracting Ltd. from Thunder Bay.
Brown noted the tender for the jobs, which went out in February and was awarded last month, came in at $571,922.49—more than $100,000 less than the amount engineering consultants Engineering Northwest Ltd. told the town it would cost.