By Casey Lessard
Turnout at the recent sewer meeting (previewed in the Sept. 25 edition of the Grand Bend Strip) was more than double what the municipality of Lambton Shores expected, community services director Peggy Van Mierlo-West said Monday.
“We proposed we would get 200 people. We had 400 show up. It’s great to see there’s great interest in the project.”
“People had a lot of great comments, pro and con, for the collection system. We realize we have a lot of work to do to answer questions, but we’re ready to go ahead with that.”
Public comment on the project must be received by October 24. The two options available to get sewage from homes to the sewage treatment plant are gravity-based, which costs $23,000 per lot, or a hydro-based system, which costs $10,000 per lot. Municipal staff told the meeting they recommended the latter due to cost. Federal and provincial funding may bring these costs down.
Either system requires homeowners to link into the system privately, which costs an additional amount. In our Sept. 25 issue, Dashwood resident John Mason predicted that amount to be at least $10,000 per home.
Van Mierlo-West anticipates there will be more meetings to discuss this project.
“We want to know how homeowners are feeling, so having those comment forms come in is an important tool for us.”
Clarification: When John Mason suggested in our Sept. 25 issue that effluent should be used to fertilize trees at the Pinery, he meant only the Pinery’s effluent, not that of the entire sewer coverage area.