City of Powell River’s committee of the whole has received a suggestion to create an oversight committee for the city’s new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).
At the September 1 meeting of the committee, Powell River resident Ron Woznow said he was appearing to recommend an initiative that could significantly reduce the likelihood that the wastewater treatment project will exceed its budget.
“What do I know about large capital water projects and waste treatment? In 1995 I was the project manager for a water park project in Huairou County, north of Beijing,” said Woznow. “In 2020 dollars it was a $100-million project.
“Prior to that I was the vice-president for research and environment for Fletcher Challenge Canada that owned three of BC’s largest pulp mills. Each had a wastewater treatment plant. I was also an adjunct professor in management and economics at Guelph University and the forestry faculty at UBC.”
Woznow said he is talking about the WWTP because if there is a budget overrun, taxes will go up and/or services will go down.
“All of us will be impacted in some way,” said Woznow. “However, a significant percentage of our seniors who are living on fixed income will suffer significantly. We have seen the impact of negative events like the pandemic on seniors; seniors taking half of their prescribed medicines and foregoing meals to make ends meet. You should do everything possible to prevent a similar impact.”
Woznow said to prevent this, the city can immediately put in place a WWTP oversight committee. He said it should be separate and distinct from the plan monitoring committee and finance advisory board.
“The committee should have the mandate to report directly to council if they spot questionable activities or significant deviations from the project’s critical path,” said Woznow.
He said for his China project, he had the past president of China Rail as the chair of his oversight committee and its recommendations, when acted upon, saved millions of dollars.
In terms of justification for a dedicated oversight committee, Woznow said WWTP projects have a history of delays and cost overruns. He said the Niagara-on-the-Lake project was comparable to Powell River’s and was almost three years late when it started up in 2019, and 20 per cent over budget.
Woznow said the city sole-sourced a contract last month to manage the project, even though it had two years to draft a tender and review bids. He said the finance committee believed a bidding process would take valuable time and, quite possibly, not result in lower bids.
“Valuable time? Quite possibly? Why didn’t they think about this while the design was being refined and they had oodles of time?” asked Woznow. “Competitive bids quite possibly would have saved money and identified design flaws that could be corrected before construction started.”
Woznow said the financial outlook for Powell River is poor.
“There are no new jobs or commercial tax revenue, and the owners of the mill aren’t commenting on the near-term or long-term future of the mill,” he added. “Will they continue to pay their taxes?”
Woznow said the bottom line is that each of the elected officials and the chief executive officer will own the legacy of the WWTP.
“An oversight committee should be part of your plan to protect citizens,” he added.
