The biggest capital project in the history of Ashcroft is now finished.

Mayor Barbara Roden says a new water treatment plant is up and running, which had been in the works for about a decade before construction started last year.

“It was a real marathon, I was involved in two councils that did a lot of work. Previous councils did a lot of work. And boy there were times when that finish line was so far in the distance you couldn’t even see it. And now it’s up and running, and we’re having a grand opening on Tuesday the 19th.”

Roden says the project will come in at about $8.2 million, and says government grants covered more than $5.7 million of that cost.

“We’re not going to need to borrow nearly as much money as we thought because our chief financial officer Yogi Bhalla has been absolutely fantastic at managing the funds, being able to fund it without having to access the loan until the last possible moment.”

Borrowing up to $4.2 million for the plant was approved in a public referendum in 2016.

“This is the biggest project we’d ever done, and there was some trepidation about that, understandable,” Roden says.

“But the last two years we’ve had very heavy freshets and the turbidity has been terrible, we’ve had boil water notices for several weeks on end. And I’ve noticed that since those two springs, people aren’t complaining about the water treatment plant, people have been saying ‘when’s it coming online? When’s it going to start treating the water?'”

The grand opening will take place from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday at the water treatment plant facility near Legacy Park.