Taxpayers will have spent $65 million on Greater Victoria’s sewage treatment megaproject by the end of this year, without any shovels in the ground on an actual treatment plant.
The costs amount to a little more than eight per cent of the treatment project’s $783-million budget, despite widespread disagreement among politicians over where to locate the plant, what treatment technology to use and where to process the resulting sludge.
The budget estimates, outlined in a report to the Capital Regional District’s sewage committee, show the project is forecast to have spent $65.4 million by the end of 2013 — mainly on preparing construction contracts, underground pipes, pump stations and land purchases. No major construction is slated for this year.
CRD staff say that’s on budget, and includes $8.6 million already spent on work to date. The entire project is to be complete in 2018.
“The concern is that we know where the money is going, we think, based on the plan, but we still have a huge question mark about half of the plan,” said Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, who sits on the CRD sewage committee.
“So we haven’t decided whether the back end of the car is going to be a Chevy or a Cadillac. How much money is it going to take?
“We really are in a [cost] estimate, and it’s based on a plan that keeps shifting every time the committee meets.”
Desjardins’ concerns about money spent on an ever-changing plan were echoed by other sewage directors at the last CRD sewage meeting on July 24.
The CRD and Esquimalt remain locked in a zoning dispute over whether to build a treatment plant at McLoughlin Point. The B.C. government has refused to intervene. The CRD is charging forward to select a company to build the McLoughlin plant, based on the assumption it can sort out the zoning dispute.
The sludge left over from treatment was supposed to be piped to a biosolids plant at Viewfield Road in Esquimalt. But after paying $17 million for the land — which is included in the $65-million total — the CRD abandoned that location because of criticism from neighbouring residents.
It has since reverted to its default plan of piping sludge 18 kilometres to Hartland landfill in Saanich, though several sewage directors have since called that plan nonsensical and demanded the CRD find a closer site.
Despite the disagreements, money continues to be spent.
More than $10 million of the $16.9 million budgeted for pump stations and pipes in 2013 is going toward an upgraded Craigflower sewage pump station in View Royal, said CRD sewage committee chairwoman Denise Blackwell.
The CRD is also budgeting $5 million for project management this year, including almost $3.4 million for consultants and more than $1 million in staff salaries, records show.
The project budget is further complicated by secrecy.
Though the CRD announced the purchase of McLoughlin Point from Imperial Oil, the purchase price was not made public, Desjardins noted.
That price — believed to be $4.6 million — forms part of the 2013 budget totals. The lack of transparency is concerning, said Desjardins.
