Wow! I think we can all come up for air now. Schools are open today. Sun is shining and the temperature is “February cold”. Thanks to Mr Charby and Mr Jackson for working so hard to get the streets open Tuesday night and working on widening them on Wednesday. Still lots of work to do on the roads. I spoke to the gents yesterday and the sidewalks are going to be a challenge. We will see how what progress they make later today. Perhaps the warm weather on Saturday will help. In the meantime, please be careful when walking on the roads.
I also noted, like many of you, huge piles of snow moved onto the streets from private property. I will be hosting a meeting in the next couple of weeks with business owners and snow plow operators to discuss options of how we can work together to manage large snowfalls in the future.
Final word on this snow event is FUN! The children (of all ages) hadn’t had any snow related activities yet this winter, so 2 “snow days” helped make up for that!
We have an amazing MPP. Steve Clarke has been working on our behalf since hearing this news on Monday.
Many people have asked me what they can do to help. You can write or email the Minister ultimately responsible for infrastructure in the province of Ontario.
Minister Brad Duguid
Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure
8th Floor, Hearst Block
900 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2E1
Tel
416-325-6900
Fax
416-325-6918
bduguid.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Thanks everyone. We will continue to explore all avenues. Your comments and support over the past couple of days are very much appreciated.
On Friday, February 5, the Village of Westport was notified that its application for the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) Application Based Component was denied. This grant was an absolute necessity to complete the work at the waste water treatment plant and bring the municipality into compliance with the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.
It is difficult to comprehend how the Village’s application would not be reviewed, assessed and ranked at or near the top of the applicant lists due to the significant potential risks to the environment posed by the aging Snowfluent system and the Village’s severely limited tax base.
The Village is contacting Ministry staff for additional explanations and exploring all other possibilities for financing the refurbishment at the waste water treatment plant. This issue is on the Committee of the Whole Meeting Agenda, being held on Tuesday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m.
If you have any questions, please contact the Councillor of your choice or me at 613-273-9195.
Great news, everyone! You spoke. We listened. Here is the result. Check out the new look and design of our new web site. We hope it is easier to find information and it is certainly a more colourful site. Some pages are still under construction, however we wanted to go live now and catch up those other pages later.
Check out the new Vintage Westport page – thanks to Christine Janeway for her meticulous research and fascinating photos. A big shout out to Niki Bresee – for her efforts to bring the new web site from a concept to a reality.
Please give us some feedback if there are features you would like to see or if something is not working for you on the web site.
The warm weather this winter and equipment freeze ups have made it very difficult to process effluent at the WWTP. To date we have only processed a small amount of effluent and the lagoons are at 95.5% full. According to our processing schedule, the lagoons should be down to 75% by January 18. At Committee of the Whole on Monday night, we reviewed the activity from the previous 3 years at the WWTP and have serious concerns about the volume of effluent in the lagoons. One of the major issues is that the flows to the plant have been 2 1/2 times higher in December than in November. There is little doubt that sump pumps emptying into the system are partly to blame.
With the unpredictability of both the weather and our equipment, we made the decision to haul 10,000 cubic metres from the WWTP to Smiths Falls, beginning tomorrow (Wednesday). We simply could not risk another weather event like last week’s torrential rains. We will continue to process effluent at every opportunity.The cost of hauling is grant eligible from the money that we have received for remediation to the lagoons.
I will keep you updated on our progress throughout the winter. Please contact the Councillor of your choice or me (273-9195) if you have any questions.
Robin, The Mayor 
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