Problems driving wastewater plant expansion over budget

Problems driving wastewater plant expansion over budget

News

By: Sandra Bolan

Despite poor weather, problems finding tradespeople and personnel issues with the contractor, work on the Bradford West Gwillimbury wastewater treatment plant remains on schedule, but it will likely go over budget.

To date, the $34-million project is about $150,000 under budget, but according to Gord Miokovic, Bradford West Gwillimbury’s water and wastewater engineer, upon completion of the project, it will be about $500,000 over budget.

The project is expected to be complete by next September.

“Looking at what we know still remains to be purchased for the expansion and the changes to the construction we are working through, additional costs of some $700,000-plus will be incurred,” Mr. Miokovic wrote in his report to council, updating the plant’s progress. “Allowing for a small additional buffer, the contract may be as much as $500,000 over budget on a $34,707,800 construction cost, or some 1.4 per cent.”

The cost of the project is funded primarily through development and development agreements, but a small portion (around six per cent) of the project is being paid for via user rates.

“The cost over-run would impact user costs in the $30,000 range,” according to Mr. Miokovic.

“We have absorbed the cost of operating that plant without the population to support it,” Jay Currier, Bradford West Gwillimbury’s chief administrative officer, said. “Gradually, the wastewater revenue stream will increase as the population grows.”

In March 2007, construction of the $34-million wastewatertreatment plant got underway and work moved along so smoothly, the contractor expected it to be completed well before the September 2009 deadline.

However, an early snowfall last November, combined with a wet spring and summer, slowed things down.

Another unforeseen problem with the project was the lack of electrical and mechanical tradespeople, who were in high demand and committed to other projects.

“The schedule appeared to continually slide, but was always within and well ahead of the 30-month contracted schedule,” according to Mr. Miokovic.

To further complicate matters, last spring a new consulting firm, AECOM, purchased a number of other consulting firms, including the one working on the wastewater treatment plant project.

“Town staff managed to secure the consultant’s design project manager to function as the construction manager in order to provide continuity in completing this project and, thereby, minimizing time delay and costs,” according to Mr. Miokovic’s report.

If switching project managers mid-stream was not difficult enough, in September, the general contractor’s construction superintendent handed in his resignation.
“The contractor assigned a new site superintendent who, although very knowledgeable, will need to be in a transition and learning period, as they acquire familiarity with this project background,” according to Mr. Miokovic.
While the problems experienced haven’t impacted the plant’s completion date of September 2009, they have slowed down the contractor’s estimated time line, which had a commissioning date of September 2008.

Commissioning is now slated to begin sometime this month for some of the plant’s components.

Commissioning of the plant takes about three to four months and entails operating specific pieces of equipment in isolation to ensure they work properly.

The earliest the plant could come online for a trial run is around January or February for about a month-and-a-half.

However, the timing for this is not optimal.

“Commissioning of the plant at that time of year is very difficult due to temperature issues and as a result, a realistic commissioning schedule may start sometime in mid-March and be completed by early May 2009,” according to Mr. Miokovic.

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