After years of waiting, fundraising, and collecting contributions from kind donors, the Municipality of Port Hope’s Skate Park Development Committee finally broke ground on Wednesday, officially marking the realization of a dream hatched 12 years ago.

Thanks to contributions coming from local residents, businesses, the municipality, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the goal of reaching the $365,000 finally came true, helping give birth to the Municipality’s much-awaited skate park. The strong community spirit and local support just goes to show what people can accomplish when they get their heads together, one local official said.

As of writing this blog post, work on the park is now underway. Once completed, the skate park will be open to roller skaters, skateboarders looking for a safe spot to unwind, and everyone in the family.

According to Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson, the local community is to thank for the park’s construction. After years of waiting, she joked that local Moms can now get on their BMXs and ride in the park. It used to be that those on non-motorized vehicles could only safely enjoy themselves in the remote and out of the way parks.

When the skate park finally opens this September, it seems that won’t be a problem any longer.

The new sewage treatment plant along Lake Street in Port Hope cost $36 million to construct and features cutting edge technologies & other fancy equipment. But like most high-budget projects in the country, this one also has some controversy behind it.

As proposed, both the federal and provincial governments will shoulder one-fourth of the cost, while the ratepayers were arranged to take care of what remained of the facility’s budget, which was originally pegged at $27 million.

According to Port Hope officials, the added $9 million is due to the unexpected cleanup of PCBs or Polychlorinated biphenyls around the old plant in 2008 – something that resulted in a halt of work, fees for hauling toxic waste, and subsequent penalties coming from the project’s contractor.

But to Sarah Clayton, a resident of Port Hope, this added fee is just plain unacceptable. She notes that the contaminated soil should have been part of the agreement in 2001 between Port Hope and the Federal Government that indicates 40,000 cubic meters of industrial waste in Port Hope to be up for remediation.

She points out that the treatment facility property could possible be contaminated with federal waste.

Municipal engineer Peter Angelo is puzzled as to why Port Hope was unaware of this contamination before entering into a legal agreement, but Mayor Linda Thompson commented that she’s exhausted efforts to fit the material into the federal clean up.

As of the moment, the municipality is concentrating on reducing the financial impact of the new sewage plant on the community.

Cheese may mean different things in French and Italian, but a cash donation of $5,000 is pretty clear – it’s a chance to provide more of this food to students in local schools.

For the 3rd consecutive year, Cameco Corporation has donated $5,000 for the purchase of more cheese products to be used in the nutrition drives and programs of 37 different schools in Northumberland County.

Not many people may know it, but cheese is a vital part of snack programs that are organized in the county’s schools. These programs are aimed at providing balanced and nutritious diets to students and youngsters – food they need to excel in class and everyday tasks.

Susan Greenwood, who works with the organization Northumberland Food for Thought, the group in charge of school food programs, said that Cameco’s recent donation is a big help to their efforts in promoting the importance of nutrition in the county. No matter what language you use, $5,000 is generous enough, she added.

To make the contribution formal, Cameco GM Andrew Thorne will be a guest of honor today in a ceremony and program held at the Ganaraska Trail Public School in the town of Port Hope, where he’ll present the check to NFFT and help out with the feeding efforts.

This week’s Port Hope news was riddled with community issues and the like. Here’s a quick recap of the major stories that happened in Port Hope.

A recent survey that polled numerous residents in the Municipality of Port Hope showed that many still had confidence in the local government’s plants to dispose and manage the town’s low-level radioactive waste. A long-term facility is currently in the works. Most residents who were polled also said that Port Hope is a still a good place to live in.

An issue that drew heated debate was the Port Hope library’s reduction of funding worth $10,000. The move was met with some controversy after chief librarian Barbara Stephenson pointed out that the reduction had to do with their receiving a donation from the company behind the ABC series “Happy Town,” which was shot in Port Hope.

Just recently, a wave of debit card fraud hit some residents in Port Hope, prompting police officials to launch an investigation into the matter. Police have not confirmed the number of people affected due to the lack of facts and details.

And finally, the third annual CanSkate Provincial Olympic celebration took place in Port Hope last week, hosted by the Port Hope Figure Skating Club. Every child who participated in the event was a winner, bringing home their own medal.

Some Port Hope residents were shocked to find out last week that someone had stolen money from their bank accounts. According to Port Hope Police Constable Jim Dunn, someone or some group is responsible for this rash of debit card fraud, but they can’t make any statements as of yet due to lack of details and facts. He admits that they have received a disturbing amount of complaints from people all over town.

Last Friday, February 5, police from the Municipality of Port Hope took action as people began to notice that they had money go missing from their individual accounts.

Port Hope’s police authorities don’t have a final number of the residents affected by the fraud, but their investigation led them to believe that a number of merchants in the Port Hope area had compromised machines. One local bank in the region pointed out that this wave of debit card fraud is the largest they’ve ever seen.

According to Bobbi Lax VP of operations at Ganaraska Financial, there’s a major difference to complaints of credit and debit card in the past and what’s happened now. The marked increase is disturbing he added.

Investigation on the case is still ongoing.

According to a recent survey commissioned by the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) Management Office that involved residents in Port Hope, community members still have confidence in the municipality’s plans to clean up and manage Port Hope’s low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at a long-term facility that’s going to be constructed in the future.

Bob Neufuld, PHAI’s manager for its stakeholder and communications department, was pleased to find out that confidence remains high in the project, as well as in the quality of life in Port Hope.

The survey, which was done through telephone, indicated that 78 percent of those polled in the Port Hope community were at least somewhat confident that the low-level radioactive waste can be managed in the planned long-term waste management site. 40 percent of Port Hope’s residents on the other hand, were very confident in the upcoming project.

The same survey also found out that over 70 percent of those interviewed, were satisfied living in the community. 90 percent were ‘somewhat’ to ‘very’ satisfied to be living in Port Hope.

Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson said she is very pleased to see that residents in the community are still very supportive of the project. She promised that the waste management facility will have a positive impact on the community.

In an effort to have the public learn more about the proposed price hikes in the Municipality of Port Hope’s sewage and water services, officials have invited the town’s residents to a public meeting set to take place on the 16^th of February, Tuesday.

The municipality is planning to pass a bylaw that allows Port Hope to meet the requirements outlined under the Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act of Ontario. The act also requires Port Hope to provide enough revenues, hence, the need for a bylaw that changes that current clean-water and waste-water rates.

However, Port Hope’s council is also required to host a meeting to in order to inform the public on the proposed cost of water and wastewater services.

Anyone in town who’s interested to know how the price hikes will them is invited to attend the meeting on Tuesday, February 16 at 5:30 in the afternoon. The meeting will take place in council chambers at the Town Hall. Those with concerns and other comments can raise them in the meeting.

Details and additional information on the proposed rates will be made available through the office of the municipal clerk on Friday, February 12.

Good news for the folks in Port Hope. Viceroy Homes will be back to building homes as its employees put pen to paper and signed a 3-year deal on Monday, this according to the Chris Lindal, the company’s chief officer for operations.

He said that Viceroy is happy to have reached a long-term accord that pleases both the company as well as its unionized employees. It’s a fair agreement that everyone likes, he added.

Though he didn’t disclose the full details of the deal, Lindal said that the agreement gives stability to the workforce, allowing Viceroy to provide new services to their customers, as well new products to be manufactured in the Port Hope plant that will distributed to all parts of the globe.

On December of last year, close to 60% of Viceroy Homes’ factory workers from the plant in Port Hope rejected a proposal presented by the company, leaving the future of the plant in limbo for a few weeks.

It’s worth noting that Viceroy Homes has been a part of Port Hope’s industry for more than 20 years. Lindal said that he owes it to the town and its residents to present a better deal to the company’s employees.

In an effort to raise awareness on renewable energy methods, and more importantly, which one to use someday in Port Hope, Renewable Energy Management Inc. recently held an open house at the Port Hope Capitol Theater. The event was a success, with dozens of residents flocking to the venue to learn more about the planned waste-to-energy facility proposed by the company.

According to officials from REM, the company is looking at one day building a low-temperature energy-from-waste conversion plant on the 23-acre site situated at Wesleyville Road. If things go according to their plans (approval from the Environment Ministry included), then groundbreaking should take place around the spring of 2011, this according to REM’s chief operating officer, Ed Niewinski.

Of course, a facility that sounds like one that incinerates waste on extremely large amounts is likely to cause concern, and the potential pollution and ash the plant might release into the air was what residents in attendance were worried about. But Niewinski calmed fears by explaining that the plant won’t be an incinerator, but rather, will be one that utilizes a low-temperature gasification process – a system that is slow, with multiple stops that keep the facility from producing large amounts of air pollution.

Port Hope officials will be presented with proposal over the next few weeks to come.

In a move to feature the municipality of Port Hope on the monopoly game board, Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson is urging the community’s residents to pitch in by voting and spreading the word.

At a committee of the whole meeting that took place last week on January 19, the mayor mentioned an online contest that asked online web surfers to name the different Monopoly property space for the soon-to-be-released Canadian version of the popular board game.

Game and toy manufacturer Hasbro is encouraging Canadians to select which cities and towns will make up the board game’s property spaces via online voting. 20 Canadian cities and 2 wildcard municipalities will be chosen once voting ends.

 And as a way of getting Port Hope a wildcard spot, Mayor Thompson is urging everyone in the community to vote for Port Hope.

The online competition is already underway. If you want to vote for the municipality of Port Hope, then logon to www.monopolyvote.ca. The great news is that you can vote more than once, so drop by the site everyday and help our town make a mark on game history. Voting will be until February 7, 2010, so act now!