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Sewage plant upgrades ahead of schedule

Municipality moving to borrow an extra $20 million for construction costs
1506sewage
Clean Water The sewage outfall into the Cheakamus River will be cleaner once the waste water treatment plant upgrades are complete. Photo by Maureen Provencal.

Six months since construction began on the sewage plant upgrades, Whistler is on course to receive $12.6 million in grant money from the provincial and federal government.

“It is looking quite positive at this time,” said John Nelson, Capital Projects manager for the municipality.

“There are some decision processes that have to be gone through by the provincial and federal government, so we can’t speak for them, but we’re optimistic it will be approved.”

In order to receive the grant, $20 million worth of work has to be completed by March.

Construction is ahead of schedule, and contractor Graham Infrastructure is predicting the project will only take 18 months, compared to the original 24-month estimation.

“When we hired the consultant, we prepared a schedule that we and the consultant thought was reasonable to build a plant of that size,” said Nelson.

“This particular contractor came back with a schedule that would only take 18 months. Part of it was because we had asked in the tendering process that the contractor be prepared to get started quickly to do a good portion of the work before March 31 st , 2008.”

Graham Infrastructure also has an incentive to get the project done earlier, since a shorter project means more financial gain.

Work on the wastewater treatment plant began in August, with the foundation laid this fall. Construction has now begun on the walls of the facility, and the bulk of work should be completed by the end of 2008.

The contractor is experiencing some problems due to the heavy snowfall.

“The schedule was critical for this project because of the infrastructure grant,” said Nelson.

The project is being funded by municipal reserves, contributions from the federal and provincial infrastructure program and financing from the Municipal Finance Authority (MFA).

The $12.6 million from the federal and provincial governments was approved in 2003, when the sewage treatment plant project was estimated to cost a total of $20 million.

Costs have now risen to $51.65 million, with the budget projected for 2007 alone amounting to $17.7 million. These increases stem from escalating construction costs as well as the scope of the project changing to include a state-of art composting facility.

The wastewater treatment plant will include a biological nutrient removal process, ultra violet disinfection, a district energy system for the athletes’ village, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) silver standard, biosolids composting, a new entrance off Cheakamus, and new hydro service.

The biological treatment process means chemicals will not have to be used to get rid of nutrients such as phosphorus. This also means that less nitrogen and ammonia will be passed into the environment.

An odour sampling program was also carried out last year by Graham Infrastructure.

Nelson said the results showed that many sites within the plant boundaries are producing odours. However the odour tower removes about 88 per cent of the odour molecules.

To help pay for the rising construction cost of the plant, council is hoping to borrow $20 million from the Municipal Finance Authority (MFA).

The amount of money actually needed is $15 million, but the municipality hopes to borrow the extra money in case extra expenses are incurred.

The wastewater treatment loan was one of four loans approved by council during Monday night’s meeting.

Together the loan applications total almost $33 million, and they were passed with no discussion among councillors.

Mayor Ken Melamed later said there was no debate that night because the decisions were made previously.

“This is an accumulation of direction provided by a council session,” said Melamed.

He added: “There has been talk at the council table that long term infrastructure projects will benefit future generations of Whistler, and so the cost should be spread over the future.”

The other loans approved were $6 million for construction of the solid waste transfer station, $3.539 million for the construction cost of the new Whistler Library and $3.25 million for the cost of acquiring MY Millennium Place.

All loans will not exceed 20 years, and the Millennium Place loan will not go beyond 10 years.

The mayor said that the old days of being able to pay for infrastructure costs through growth are gone.

“This is the normal way that municipality’s fund major infrastructure projects, through borrowing,” he said.

“It is only uncommon for us because we have such phenomenal growth that we have not had to do it before.”

Melamed pointed out that the municipality has been budgeting for these projects for many years. As a result, the amount of money being borrowed today is less than it could have been.

“There is some good fiscal planning going on here, and borrowing is not an indication of poor fiscal planning,” he said.