The federal and provincial governments have topped off their contributions to the Altona lagoon expansion project. Phase three of the upgrade is getting an additional $3.37 million between the two governments under the new Clean Water and Wastewater Fund.

The Government of Canada is providing over $49,000 under the fund, and the Government of Manitoba is contributing over $24,000 to support twenty-three projects throughout the province with the goal of rehabilitating and improving the reliability or operational effectiveness of community water and wastewater systems.

Altona Mayor Melvin Klassen says this latest funding announcement is good news.

"The project is about twelve million dollars in total and this will mean that sixty per cent of the funding is provided by provincial/federal grants and then (Altona) would have to pay forty-per cent. If (Altona) didn't receive this it would have been just the opposite, (the two governments) would've been paying forty per cent of the total project and (Altona) would've been paying sixty."

Klassen goes on to explain that phase three involves phosphorus removal from the lagoon, a process that is required when any new facilities are built or old ones are updated.

"That is a big part of the total project. If I'm right it's over four million dollars."

He adds this latest grant will still leave the Town to pay about $1 million of this cost but says that's quite affordable.

Klassen thanks Portage-Lisgar MP Candice Bergen for her suggestion to split the project into phases, allowing Council to access more government funds.

Meantime, he says phase three is the final step in the expansion that's been ongoing for about five years now. "Once this is done we should be good now for another twenty/thirty years."