Stonewall Town Council's given third reading to a by-law to move forward with expanding and upgrading the town's lagoon.

Mayor Lockie McLean says it's a project worth just under 5.7 million dollars, and after public hearings, the Water Services Board has approved the plan to finance it, through a 20 year debenture.

He says the plan includes several sources of funding, including a portion from town residents.

"And every property owner in town would pay an equal amount, regardless of the value of the property," he says, "It started out with a cost, and a projection of being $122.00 per year, per property owner. But we're very, very confident in the next few weeks, that we'll have a plan that will bring it significantly under the $122.00 per year, per property owner."

McLean says the project's critical for Stonewall, because the current lagoon's at capacity.

"We had the red light for the province several years ago telling us that they might stop building in Stonewall altogether," he points out, " And then you also know that the low interest rate environment we're in right now -- nothing lasts forever. Who knows what it's going to be in one year, two years, three years down the road. And this is a project that we had to make happen. If we didn't make it happen, the growth in Stonewall would have come to a halt."

McLean's also confident residents' contributions will be lower.

"We looked out, and we projected an interest rate that was 5.5%, and we know we can do better than that," he says, "The other thing is, when we projected the $122.00, it was only projecting that we get a provincial grant. But we're optimistic that we'll get other grants that'll take down the cost from $122.00, to much lower."