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In this hand financial tools and in this hand a wastewater P3

Without the usual dodging and weaving, homespun homilies and flowery verbiage that usually chew up the first couple of hundred words of this column, let’s instead just pull on our hip waders, pinch our noses and jump right into this stinky busin
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Without the usual dodging and weaving, homespun homilies and flowery verbiage that usually chew up the first couple of hundred words of this column, let’s instead just pull on our hip waders, pinch our noses and jump right into this stinky business of how Whistler goes about expanding its wastewater treatment plant.

The choice comes down to this. Behind door number one is The Devil We Know. Behind door number two is The Devil We Don’t Know.

The Devil We Know is a traditional approach and the one Whistler’s followed in the past. Under that approach, the Muni, in conjunction with engineers who build such things, would design the parameters of the wastewater treatment plant expansion. Companies would bid on the contract, the winner would build the thing and the Muni would own, staff and operate it.

The Devil We Don’t Know approach is the one currently clogging the plumbing at muni hall. It is the Design, Build, Operate (DBO) approach where the facility’s design, construction and operation are held by a private sector, for-profit business. The Muni’s laid out the general parameters but in this case has paid four bidding companies $100,000 each to work up their bids… which we won’t see until sometime later this summer. The Muni will still own the resulting facility and will still hang on to the ultimate risk of its operation should untreated sewage start spilling into the Cheakamus.

There are a couple of things worth noting at this point. If you hear much of anything about this project you’ll certainly hear how much money delaying it is costing us. According to Councillor Ralph, every month we dither is costing us $100,000 in construction escalation costs.

That’s interesting. But the fact is, this albatross has been hanging around for a couple of years now. Over two years ago, the Muni was well on its way to going with the Devil We Know and getting on with it. Had the council of the day simply done that, the expansion would just about be completed by now and we wouldn’t be talking about it… still.

But about the time Dayton & Knight – the Devil We Know, consulting engineers who are responsible for the existing plant and the infrastructure supporting its expansion – were delivering their 2003 pre-design report, the agent for the Devil We Don’t Know butted in. The DWDK’s agent is Partnerships BC (PBC), Gordon "Rear-Entry" Campbell’s tool of privatization.

"Pssst," PBC whispered. "Have we got a deal for you." PBC wanted the Muni to consider going the DBO route. It’s a tenet of Rear-Entry’s conservative, ideological dogma that private is better than public, which, coincidentally explains his heavy-handed move on IPPs recently. (And I apologize for all the initials; it’s unavoidable when you’re dealing with things governmental.)

To make a long story short, there may or may not have been friendly persuasion brought to bear on our tiny mountain home with regard to any of the following: the province’s contribution to the wastewater plant expansion, financial tools, land bank legacy, anything else Rear-Entry has promised and failed to deliver since he took office.

The net result is, our municipal engineer, who initially did not support the DBO option decided it wasn’t such a bad idea after all, a somewhat lopsided blue ribbon panel was formed to help shed light on the subject, a "shadow bid" was drawn up to show how much money the Muni could save by going the DBO route, the decision was made – finally – to go with the Unknown Devil, $400,000 was spent to prime the pump, and we’re now a week into the euphemistically-named Alternative Approval Process which is actually a disapproval process and stain on democracy.

And now, after a year of heel-dragging, a Freedom of Information filing has brought two documents to light. The shadow bid and a review undertaken by Dayton & Knight of the PBC business case for going the DBO route. Even in open, transparent local governments, disclosure takes some time.

The Dayton & Knight report, in 16 pages, paints a picture of the PBC case for privatization as a duplicitous, half-assed, shot-from-the-hip proposal, more smoke than fire. It guts the argument that going the DBO route will result in any real cost savings by pointing out, among other shortcomings, how the shadow bid has conveniently left out costs and risks associated with trucking untreated sewage solids down to Squamish for composting instead of – forgive the imagery – treating and digesting them on site.

This single point – there are too many in the report to go over here; hopefully the entire report will be posted to Whistler Water Watch’s website – is worth taking a closer look at because it illuminates the additional risks the Muni seems willing to take on or overlook in its headlong rush to embrace the DBO model favoured by the province.

The 20 year capitalized costs associated with hauling untreated sludge to Squamish for composting is $8 to $16 million bucks, a cost not in the estimate upon which we figure we’re going to save money. It makes one wonder what else isn’t accounted for.

More importantly, hauling sludge to Squamish isn’t embraced by Whistler’s Liquid Waste Management Plan as approved by the province. To truck it down to Squamish, the plan will have to be amended. Important note: The Dayton & Knight report is dated November 29, 2004. Maybe some of these hurdles have been overcome; maybe not. Who knows since we’re pretty much kept in the dark on this and have to go through onerous FOI requests to ferret out important information.

The process to amend, according to the report, may take up to a year to complete and include public consultation/approval. Given the current difficulties being experienced by the composting facility in Squamish and the townsfolk’s willingness to embrace Whistler exporting its shit downvalley, one might imagine there’ll be some public opposition to the plan. In which case we’d have to haul it to Washington… at greater expense.

It’s important to bear two things in mind about the Dayton & Knight report. First, the company would undoubtedly get the contract if the Muni followed the traditional course. They’re responsible for the current plant – which operates at a less than average cost per unit of treated flow – and know more about it than anyone else. They may or may not be hired by whomever is awarded the DBO contract but clearly, they stand to lose out if the Muni goes that way. They can be seen to have an axe to grind.

The other important thing is this: their report was, apparently, not among the important things this council had in front of them when they made their decision based on, as Ralph so succinctly put it, the expert opinions of lawyers and engineers. Why not?

There are reasons aplenty for concerned Whistleratics to go to www.whistler.ca and download the Elector Response Form, sign it and drop it off at muni hall to derail this misadventure. I’ll spend yet another week outlining them – maybe two if another interesting document finds its way to my in basket. Sorry, I miss the cute dog and cat stories too.