Redvers announced that $4.5 million in funding is coming from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program for water treatment upgrades. In December 2021, the Water Security Agency told Redvers they had to do a mandatory water treatment upgrade to ensure their water system was compliant.  

Over the next 8-10 months the town started working on a 140-page document that they sent to ICIP. Following this, they waited 10 months before they found out they had been awarded partial project funding.  

The water treatment project will cost the town $6.1 million through the grant Redvers was awarded $4.5 million. 

Chief Administrative Officer, Tricia Pickard said that with a community the size of Redvers, they need two to three water sources, and one they did have was already at the end of its life. 

They have since secured a secondary water source and are now in the second phase of the project.  

“Phase two is an upgrade to our water treatment facility and it will include biofiltration and reverse osmosis.” 

Part of this step is the pilot project phase, during which time they will confirm biofiltration and reverse osmosis is their treatment.  

“Council and our team at the town of Redvers worked very hard for two or three years to get this project going and to acquire funding,” said Pickard. “Our goal was to get where we needed to go with water securities and meeting the standards as well as keeping the costs low for our community members and not throwing all those costs right onto our ratepayers.”  

The water tower will remain in Redvers but won’t be part of the water upgrade.  

“The water tower is an iconic part of Redvers and so although it's past its life expectancy, we don’t want to get rid of it,” said Pickard. “We’re going to leave it how it is, but then it won’t be integrated into our system.”  

Pickard said that receiving an ICIP grant for municipalities is like winning the lottery.