The most recent bombshell in City of Powell River’s ongoing sewage saga was the news that the price was no longer $30 million, but $65 million plus. Everyone, it seems, was “shocked,” even city councillors who rely on the city administration to keep them informed of such things.
How on earth did the cost jump from the supposed $30 million to $65 million?
The $30 million was never a firm estimate and it was also for a plant with less capacity. I spoke to city chief administrative officer Mac Fraser at the public meeting on the issue last week and he had a simple answer: the $30 million figure was just way out of date. He acknowledged that this should have been revealed a lot earlier.
Fraser said he expects the cost will not be quite so eye-popping in the end. A lot of that number is a hefty contingency fund set tentatively at 25 per cent; Fraser said he is hopeful that number could be kept to 10 per cent, which would mean a total cost of around $57 million. Tla’amin Nation’s share of the cost would further reduce that number.
But the passionate opposition from some residents in Townsite and the increase in the cost could set the stage for sewage treatment becoming a fall election issue. If the funding does not come through as expected it would be tempting for a municipal candidate to take us back to the co-treatment scheme where the city would pay Catalyst to treat municipal sewage in its plant. Mayor Formosa stated at the recent April 3 meeting of council that if we had gone the co-treatment route the sewage plant would not have been in anybody’s backyard. He also stated that he would have liked to “finish the process” to see if co-treatment was viable or not.
But the process was finished: co-treatment had been found not economically viable. A funding application was rejected because the plan did not show a high degree of technical merit.
In fact, mayor Formosa himself ultimately voted to reject it.
Let’s try to put this co-treatment myth to rest for good. At a council meeting on March 31, 2014, Formosa acknowledged that co-treatment was a non-starter. Supporters of co-treatment had believed the mill’s plant could still be used to serve as the city’s permanent sewage treatment plant if the mill shut down.
But at that meeting, Opus Engineering, the city’s consultant, stated this wasn’t possible because the operating costs would be way too high; the mill’s system of aerators, its tanks and its energy demand were just too big. The consultant’s report stated that the city should be prepared for closure of the mill on short notice and be ready to build a standalone plant, and that using the mill’s system even in a scaled down version could not be a long-term solution due to the high energy demand.
A subsequent report commissioned by Catalyst claimed the mill could “technically” be made to treat the city’s wastewater. But it acknowledged very high energy costs.
At the March 2014 meeting, Formosa admitted the unequivocal assessment from Opus Engineering burst his co-treatment “bubble.” He said it was a “scary thought” that Powell River might have to pay for a new plant on its own if the mill closed when there were no grants available from senior governments.
It’s still a scary thought.
Murray Dobbin is a Powell River freelance writer and social commentator.
