New water tower to fuel Timmins east end development

Ontario pledges $24 million for a new water tower in South Porcupine to solve chronic pressure issues, enabling housing and industrial growth in the area.

Timmins MPP George Pirie said the province is giving close to $24 million to build a new water tower in South Porcupine.

“There’s been a there’s been a chronic problem in the east end – South Porcupine – with water pressure and this solves that problem,” he said.

The funding comes from the province’s Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program.

“Timmins is well poised to grow and you can’t grow without infrastructure, so it’s been a real pleasure for me to partner with the City of Timmins to announce over $32 million – the first $9 million for housing,” said Pirie.

Housing is one of the city’s priorities, but to get more residential and industrial developments in the east end, the mayor said the city needs to overcome challenges with its water distribution system.

“That’s what this water tower will be able to do,” said Timmins Mayor Michelle Boileau.

“But there’s another piece to the puzzle and that will be the wastewater treatment and so I think the next step now, if we want to be able to continue talking about growth in the east end, we’ll be looking at that, so the work continues.”

The city is also investing $2 million in the new water tower which will be located on Gold Mine Road, near the Dome Mine. The city’s director of growth and infrastructure, Scott Tam, said work started on the project a couple of months ago.

“We started with the site clearing,” he said.

“We’ve actually installed all our concrete piles to hold the superstructure.”

“We’re going to start with the concrete pouring in February and then yeah,” Tam said. “This tower will get built in the next year and a half.”

The director also told CTV News that the new water tower is going to be one of the biggest in the province and it has yet to be officially named. But Tam said that’s already sparked a lot of interest among residents, so ‘stay tuned for that.’