The explosion in the costs of the Terrebonne wastewater treatment plant is attributable in particular to poor planning and the technological choice made, which caused the bill to rise from $11 million in 2011 to $99 million ten years later. , says the Auditor General (VG) of the City of Terrebonne, Sonya Guilbault.
In its annual report submitted to city council on Monday evening, the VG examines the progress of the sewage treatment plant project launched by the administration of former mayor Jean-Marc Robitaille.
Originally, the project was intended to meet the anticipated demand for wastewater management due to the increase in the city’s population, the North Shore of Montreal being the region of the Montreal Metropolitan Community where the population growth was the highest.
Costs are rising
Over the years, however, the file has encountered several pitfalls. The technological solution of activated sludge with prolonged aeration having been adopted, from 2015, at the stage of plans and specifications, the bill climbed to 44 million. In 2021, when the bids were received – which were limited to two – as part of a call for tenders, the bill rose to 87 million. The contract was finally awarded last October by the city council in the amount of 99 million, nine times the initial estimate.
To what is this vertiginous evolution attributable? The absence of supervision and deficient planning which did not make it possible to establish the design needs in a rigorous manner, considers the VG. “They ended up with significant omissions. After the first studies, at the plans and specifications stage, there were technical components that required a larger building, but they forgot the building in the analysis of the options. It represented 10 million dollars, ”explains Sonya Guilbault, in an interview with the To have to.
And at the submission stage, in 2021, the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change were not taken into account. These elements should have been planned from the start, she says.
Time has also worked against the City, in particular due to available technologies that have evolved over the years and inflation.
Despite the high cost of the project, Sonya Guilbault notes that the City has taken certain precautions. It has thus planned two construction phases so as to be able to increase the plant’s capacity if necessary. As for the choice of activated sludge treatment technology, she considers it to be a good option. “I don’t think the City of Terrebonne is going to make a mistake, but do they have all the information to make sure it’s the most economical option? Clearly not,” she explains.
Conflict of Interest Allegations
The water treatment plant case had also attracted media attention, not only because of rising costs, but also because of allegations of conflicts of interest. Under contract since 2017 for the design of plans and specifications and the supervision of the factory site, the firm FNX-INNOV had undertaken negotiations to acquire the company CWA, which was to carry out certain works. CWA was a subcontractor to CRT Construction, which in October 2021 was awarded the contract to build the plant.
Last March, the Public Procurement Authority (AMP) however informed the City that after analysis of the file, no breach had been revealed. FNX-INNOV, however, withdrew from site supervision to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.
According The Journal of Montrealthe Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) opened an investigation into this case, but on Monday, it did not want to confirm this information “so as not to compromise the collection of intelligence”.
For its part, the AG of the City of Terrebonne said it was satisfied with the mitigation measures put in place by the City.
Remember that the City of Terrebonne has already been in UPAC’s sights in the past. In 2016, Mayor Jean-Marc Robitaille resigned from his post in the wake of searches carried out at City Hall. He then admitted to having stayed on the boat of the contractor Tony Accurso. He was finally arrested in 2018 and charged with breach of trust and corruption in municipal affairs. He had obtained a stay of proceedings last October, the Court having found that the prosecution had violated the rules of procedure in this case.