Grand Forks will likely be shielded from American tariffs when it comes to electrical upgrades in Valley Heights.
Capital Projects Director Ben Stevens thanked council Monday for giving staff the authority to buy $350,000 in supplies before the budget is passed
“We’ve got purchase orders cut, orders placed for sort of six or seven different types of materials and generally things are coming in under what we expected. So far pricing is looking very favourable as are delivery times,” Stevens said.
Most of those materials are already in Canada.
Stevens says they’ve already heard from the supplier of the aluminum electrical cable, which is coming from the States and has an eight to 10 week delivery time.
“They emailed on Friday and said they would eat the cost of the tariffs if they come in with the exception of raw materials,” he said.
The raw materials is the price of aluminum.
The Valley Heights upgrades are expected to cost around $1.7 million.
But whether the city will get around a tariff hit on another major project in the neighbourhood is still unknown.
Replacing the east zone water reservoir is expected to cost around $4 million and the company showing interest, which built a reservoir in Christina Lake, is in the United States.
“Whether their raw materials go up or whether their actual product is impacted by tariffs is certainly a big question and something we’ll be keeping an eye on,” Stevens said.
The city still will be putting out a request for proposals for tank installers.
Ask by Councillor David Mark, Stevens says they don’t know of any Canadian tank producer at this point.
Preliminary designs for the 4,000 cubic foot tank in Valley Heights will be shared with council in the coming weeks. The prospective location has also been staked out.
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