The fourth time is the charm for the Smooth Rock Falls Water Tower rehabilitation project. After being voted down times as far back as 2014, town council finally approved the project at a cost of nearly $800,000. Mayor Patrick Roberts says it’s good to see it finally getting the go ahead.
“Well we were trying to look for funding, and every time you look and if you wait a bit – the price goes up higher and higher,” he said. “The price was just going so high that Smooth Rock Falls, we’re a small town, we couldn’t afford it.”
The town received a $590,000 grant from the province and will use about $290,000 from its reserves. Roberts says the engineers outlined a lot of work to be done.
“Relining of the inside of the water tower, upgrading the laddering and everything else on top of that,” he said. “We’ve also approved cleaning of the outside as well as sprucing up the Smooth Rock Falls logo on the top of it of the tower too as well.”
The familiar water tower is the second major landmark in the community to get spruced up following the Mattagami 100 locomotive last summer.
