Gas tax to help fund biomass road project

Press Release

Mayor Roy Avis today announced the town will use its 2008/09 federal gas tax revenue funding towards the rehabilitation of the roadways and sidewalks near the new AbitibiBowater biomass boiler.
“This project will replace aged infrastructure in this busy section of the community in order to help facilitate the increase in large truck travel associated with the new biomass facility,” the mayor said.
The two-year reconstruction project has a total cost of $5.4 million, $488,847 of which was provided by the gas tax fund, a federal government program that provides municipalities with stable, predictable, and permanent funding for environmentally-sustainable infrastructure.
The project also benefits from $1.3 million in funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp. and its 2008 capital grant of $770,986 under Investing in Ontario Act.
Construction for the project began in May and is scheduled to be completed by mid-September.
“Addressing municipal infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life has a huge financial impact on small municipalities in Ontario, and we are very appreciative of the federal and provincial programs that helped make this possible,” Mayor Avis said.
“The federal gas tax fund, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund, and Investing in Ontario Act acknowledge that all orders of government must work together to address the pressing need for infrastructure investment in Ontario,” said Peter Hume, president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.
“The funding is supporting hundreds of important infrastructure projects and is critical to job creation, Ontario’s competitiveness, and environmental sustainability,” he stressed.