Estevan celebrated a pair of water infrastructure project milestones with a switching ceremony on Wednesday.

The city started work on a $9.4-million drinking water system upgrade in 2017.

About two weeks ago one of the settling ponds built in phase one had it’s residuals removed for the first time, removing 99,600 kilograms of byproduct.

The second phase of the project started in the spring and involves building a portion of a 13 kilometre long pipeline that will move water to the Estevan Water Treatment Plant from the Rafferty Dam Reservoir.

The city says the third phase of the project involving the water intake and pump house will start soon with the entire project to be completed in 2020.

Both the provincial and federal governments are contributing up to $3.1-million towards the upgrades with the City of Estevan covering the remaining costs of about $9.4 million.