The City of Kamloops is hoping federal grant dollars will help get much-needed infrastructure upgrades done.

Staff will be looking for grant opportunities for the Noble Creek Water System, a project that’s now estimated to cost more than $16.6 million.

The city had initially proposed having the 47 users of the water system pay $12 million out of the $14 million cost for upgrades, but the plan was walked back after opposition from many of those users.

If the city can’t find grant funding by early 2022, staff will seek a new direction from council on how to get all of the upgrade work done.

“Our staff is continually searching for grant funding out there at every level. The Noble Creek project, for example, upgrades are urgently needed. It costs a lot of money, and so far we haven’t been super successful in finding any grants that fit that criteria. So we’re still looking,” councillor Kathy Sinclair told the NL Morning News.

The city is also formally applying for a grant that would cover 40 per cent of costs for two new roads – a paved road between Juniper and Rose Hill, and a gravel road between Pineview and Aberdeen.

The Juniper-Rose Hill connection would be from Qu’Appelle Boulevard connecting to Rose Hill Road just north of Rose Hill Park; the majority of costs for that project would be to upgrade Rose Hill Road to the intersection with Valleyview Drive, to account for the extra traffic. The Aberdeen-Pineview road would connect from Copperhead Drive to Aberdeen Drive.

Those road projects would cost $19.6 million, with $1.8 million for the gravel road between Pineview and Aberdeen, $2.5 million for the new road from Juniper West, and $15.3 million to upgrade Rose Hill Road.