The best news to come out of Monday night’s city council meeting regarding the water intake project is that the city won’t be abandoning the project.
Shane Bucsis, the relatively new manager of the city’s water division, said the project is going to proceed, even though the tenders for intake project came in well over budget. Once it is finished, the city’s primary water source will shift from Boundary Dam to Rafferty Dam.
This is a project that has been long overdue and needs to happen eventually. City council first discussed it years ago, but the money wasn’t there to complete it. When the provincial and the federal government stepped forward with support back in 2016, it allowed the water intake project to finally move forward.
Estevan’s water quality will improve after the shift to Rafferty Dam. It will allow the city to meet the requirements for trihalomethanes (THMs). Our count for THMs hasn’t been frighteningly high, but it was above the current standard.
If this project pans out like it’s supposed to, then water quality will be improved.
It’s imperative for this project to proceed for another reason. If the city were to be forced to abandon it, or shelve it indefinitely, because the costs came in too high, then the other levels of government might not be eager to support a request for funding from the City of Estevan in the future.
So to assuage anyone’s concerns, the intake project will be completed, and we will get better, cleaner water.
Obviously it’s disappointing when a project comes in so far over-budget that city council has to reject the tenders. Nobody looks good in this situation – city council, city staff, the engineering firm working with the city, or anyone else involved with the project.
It doesn’t make the planners look good, either. After all, when it’s millions of dollars more to complete a project, then one has to wonder if somebody grossly underestimated the cost of the project.
The city received government funding two years ago. Have prices changed that much since then?
Evidently, the price of pipeline has gone up considerably because the number of suppliers has declined, but looking for any reason to criticize city council will view that as a flimsy excuse.
Others might accuse the companies that submit the bids of profiteering, but these companies are trying to run a business. They have to find a way to complete the job and do so in a profitable fashion. They weren’t gouging the city.
The city’s going to re-evaluate its options for this project. They’re going to look at other ways to get it completed in the quickest and most affordable way possible. You would hope that the impact will be minimal for ratepayers, and the city won’t be taking out millions of dollars in debt to get this project complete, especially since the city has done a good job in recent years of reducing its debt load.
And while we’re all looking forward to a cleaner, better water source, we survived this long with Boundary Dam as that source. We can get by if Boundary Dam is still that source in 2019.
The water intake project will be finished.
It just might not be as quickly or as affordable as some might like.
