The Blue Mountains council has given the go ahead for the engineering budget for a pair of sewage lift station upgrade projects to be increased by $200,000.
At a special council meeting on April 14, council approved a staff request to increase the budget for engineering work required for the projects to upgrade the Mill Street sewage pumping station and the Mill Street force main and the Craigleith sewage lift station by a total of $200,000. The initial budget was set at $2 million, but tenders for the work came in over that amount prompting the request for an increase.
In what turned out to be an expensive morning, council approved the request in a 6-0 vote. Coun. Alex Maxwell was absent. Earlier in the same meeting in a separate vote, council had approved a $4.8 million increase to the budget for the Thornbury sewage treatment plant upgrade project.
Shawn Carey, director of operations for the town, called both facilities “critical infrastructure.”
“They both require extensive rebuilding. They’re quickly approaching the maximum capacity at both stations,” he said.
Last year, town staff bundled the two projects together in an effort to achieve efficiencies and economies of scale. Carey said in response to the tenders for the engineering work coming in over budget that staff have negotiated with the preferred contractor and had also done work to re-scope the projects. Those efforts saved $900,000 in costs.
“We’ve taken a lot of effort and really defined the scope of the project,” said Carey. “We’re trying to minimize surprises for the engineering firm and the constructor.”
Coun. June Porter asked staff for added re-assurances that the numbers being presented were correct.
“I want to reaffirm the scope isn’t going to lead to surprises down the road,” she said.
Carey said town staff had done a lot of review of the project with the bidder on the project.
“We feel as if our scope is as accurate as it could be,” he said.
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