Township officials seemed to be caught off guard by a $5.47-million engineer’s estimate for the expansion of the Drayton wastewater treatment plant.
“It’s a little shocking,” clerk Patty Sinnamon said at a special meeting of council on Sept. 20. “I have no idea where these figures came from.”
In addition to the initial capital cost, officials with R.J. Burnside and Associates – the firm in charge of the environmental assessment for the project – suggest a new lagoon cell will come with annual operating and maintenance costs of about $43,000.
The overall 25-year life cycle cost for the upgrade is pegged at $6.26-million.
“Some of the numbers beg some questions,” said public works director Larry Lynch. He suggested the important thing is that the township advertise the completion of the environmental assessment and make the choices available to residents.
That advertisement appears in this week’s Wellington Advertiser, and any interested parties will have 30 days to provide comments.
Lynch said in his report to council he expects the land purchase to facilitate the extra lagoon cell to take place during the 30-day public commenting period.
After that, he explained, the township hopes to proceed with the tender around Nov. 5, with a closing date of Nov. 19, which would allow lagoon construction to begin around Nov. 29.
But Lynch agreed with Sinnamon that the township needs to get some input from Robert Mayberry and other Burnside staff members about the costs.
Sinnamon said she is “a little concerned” with the estimates, which do not match up at all with earlier estimates provided for funding applications for the project.
Early last year, the township received a $1.1-million grant for wastewater upgrades from the federal and provincial governments through the Building Canada Fund.
The township was expected to use reserves for its $558,467 portion of the upgrades, which were estimated at a total cost of just under $1.7-million.
In a 2008 report, Mayberry estimated a lagoon cell with a capacity of about 115,000 cubic metres would cost about $1,338,000.
The alternate options included in the Burnside report to address capacity at the plant are a $6.7-million upgrade to the “effluent polishing works” and $12-million to build a mechanical plant.
While the costs were the major concern expressed at the council meeting, Mayor John Green also pointed out the configuration for the new lagoon cell is “not what I expected.” Lynch confirmed it was the first time he was seeing the configuration as well.
All councillors were instructed by Green to take the Burnside report and read it “intently” – it was a late arrival – and township staff said they will discuss the financial figures with Burnside representatives.
Sinnamon told councillors to email her with any questions and she would forward them on to the engineers.
