City of Powell River councillors were informed that work on the consolidated wastewater treatment plant was 58 per cent complete as of July 25.
Reporting at the August 25 finance committee meeting, city manager of engineering services Nagi Rizk updated councillors on progress being made with the project.
“It’s not quite the home stretch but we are getting there,” said Rizk. “It’s good news, so far. We actually have windows being put up at the treatment plant right now.”
Rizk said his report had no surprises, other than the construction happening at the Wildwood bridge. He said that project is behind schedule, so therefore, the treatment plant is behind schedule on that one component.
Equipment the city pre-purchased for the project is all on site, said Rizk.
“It was delivered in good shape and it’s very high-end,” he added. “Some of it is installed, but nothing is operational yet, obviously. We are on target for the commissioning.”
Trail work is proceeding successfully, according to Rizk. He said there had to be some realignment, but it is complete. He said at the highest point at the Willingdon Beach campsite, a new trail was punched in to get the pipe in, and then it goes downhill toward the Willingdon Beach trail to carry on to Wys Creek bridge. That is the remaining section and it is proceeding very well, said Rizk.
“It’s tight and quite confined to move equipment, but still, the construction challenges are not huge,” added Rizk.
He said between conveyancing work in Townsite and the Wildwood bridge, there have been inconveniences for those crossing the structure.
“The guys are doing their best,” said Rizk.
The city is receiving weekly reports from the highways ministry, which has been notified that the bridge work may impact the city’s project and may result in monetary consequences, although the city does not have figures for that.
Rizk said, however, the city is in good shape with the wastewater treatment plant.
“The plant is carrying on, on schedule,” said Rizk. “Hopefully, the liquid waste stream will be commissioned by November.”
Mayor Dave Formosa said that given the issues with the bridge that are out of the city’s control, in the middle of the treatment plant’s linear work, he wondered if there would be consequences for the delays.
Rizk said the city has received official notice of an extended time delay, however, the dollar figure associated with the delay claim is still under negotiation.
“But definitely, the schedule of the bridge, officially, is behind, so it will impact us,” said Rizk. “Officially, the province has been notified.”
Contingency question
Councillor Cindy Elliott said the current contingency sits at about $2.3 million.
“How comfortable are you with all that?” asked Elliott.
Rizk said the fact is, projects of this size are expected to have changes during construction and additional costs.
“What is making me uncomfortable is that we have $2 million in the budget as a buffer and we expect we will be exceeding that number,” said Rizk. “We’ll be convening, trying to figure out how we are going to proceed with extra claims.”
Finance committee chair George Doubt said he’d had a question from a member of the public about what is included in cost estimates that have been provided so far. He asked if the actual commissioning of the plant is included in the projected cost.
Rizk said commissioning and staff training is in the contract and cost of the project.
As for the decommissioning of existing facilities, Rizk said for the three existing plants, it involves shutting them down safely, and rerouting flows from the old plants to the new one. Repurposing involves the activity that takes place after the decommissioning and that is not part of the project, said Rizk.
He said hopefully, by the end of the year, the new treatment plant will be operational, but there will be some wrinkles to iron out.
Rizk said, however, that with the delays in some conveyancing work, there will be a treatment plant operational to treat the available flows, but that may not mean decommissioning all the treatment plants at the same time.
