Re: “CRD directors must step up on sewage project,” comment, Feb. 17.
At a Capital Regional District board meeting on Sept. 14, members were provided with a high-level reconciliation between the Seaterra project and the new sewage project.
Saanich Mayor Richard Atwell later asked for further reconciliation between the two projects. This was provided publicly at the Feb. 8 sewage-committee meeting. At that meeting, Atwell asked for more detail on the numbers. He doesn’t have these numbers yet; they will be provided at a public meeting at the March 8 committee meeting.
As for the funding, it was clear in my face-to-face meeting with the CEO of 3P Canada in December 2015 that all the federal funding pots were tied together. The risk of not having a project was not that $83.4 million would disappear; it’s that the total federal funding would disappear, and with it the provincial funding. That’s $500 million.
The CRD board approved a business plan developed by the project board. We delegated authority to the project board to implement that plan with a total budget of no more than $765 million. This includes a 10 per cent contingency against project risks.
Shared oversight of the project between politicians and a delegated professional board of industry experts, which Atwell suggests, is a disaster waiting to happen.
The job of elected officials is to monitor the project budget and risks, and to ensure that adequate construction mitigation happens in our communities. Most importantly, our job is not to keep revisiting decisions made by a strong majority of the board. Leadership is forward-looking and getting shovels in the ground.
Lisa Helps
Chair, CRDSewage Committee
