Natural gas is coming to Chute-à-Blondeau.
On June 9, the Ontario Ministry of Energy announced that the village in East Hawkesbury Township is one of 43 communities across the province which will receive natural gas service through Phase Two of the Natural Gas Expansion Program.
The Ministry of Energy is allocating $4,446,983 to East Hawkesbury which will bring natural gas service to 318 homes in Chute-à-Blondeau.
According to East Hawkesbury Mayor Robert Kirby, the process of securing natural gas for the community has taken three years. Chute-à-Blondeau will be the first community in the township to have the service.
“We produced a plan of where we wanted it,” Kirby said.
Meetings with Enbridge and Energy Minister Bill Walker followed.
“We were one of the fortunate ones,” said Kirby.
East Hawkesbury is the only municipality in Prescott and Russell counties receiving funding for expanded natural gas service.
Kirby said applying to have natural gas expanded to Chute-à-Blondeau made the most sense because it was an application that was most likely to succeed. He would like to see natural gas available across the township, but a request of that scale was unlikely to be approved.
“We wanted to get the best bang for the buck and get our foot in the door.”
Kirby said it will be easy to connect Chute-à-Blondeau to the gas line which presently ends along Front Road east of the Town of Hawkesbury.
Construction of the gas line to Chute-à-Blondeau will be completed in 2023.
Kirby said the next steps will be to look for other possible expansions of natural gas service in East Hawkesbury. He said St-Eugène could possibly be connected to Vankleek Hill or Ste-Anne-de-Prescott could be connected to Glen Robertson.
Kirby added he greatly appreciates the assistance from Premier Doug Ford and his staff towards the effort to secure the funding to bring natural gas to Chute-à-Blondeau.
