Sewage Treatment An update and proposed next steps

Clarifications Committee will tonight make a recommendation to Council Council will consider on Monday 14 th July No option to avoid sewage treatment Taxpayers will have to pay Decision is how we get there How does that affect costs?

What this presentation covers A progress update on the CRRC A review of the Dockside Green system An account of the visit to the Sechelt Water Resource Recovery Centre A review of the current state of the CRD Seaterra Program, and An outline of how the City can manage the process to get to a completed sewage treatment plant including the engagement of the Project Advisory Team.

Progress CRD conditional permission Public info open house – 79% support Compiled flowchart of MWR requirements Report on Dockside Green Discussion with Minister of Environment Discussions with Westside Mayors Visit to Sechelt RFP for EIS

Dockside Green

The sewage effluent

The bakery and coffee shop

Dockside Green 1 One of the first in BC to produce high quality effluent for re-use Therefore close scrutiny by CRD, MOE, Victoria The most restrictive limits of any in BC (5 BOD and 10 TSS) Actual results almost always below detection CRD plant will be limited to 25 and 25

Dockside Green 2 Limit of coliform for DSG is 2.2 CFU/100 ml Only once exceeded detection limit That reading was 1 CFU/100 ml At disinfection NTU must be less than 2 ave. and 5 max. Actual is about 0.25 Turbidity spikes

Dockside Green 3 First year 14 non-compliance issues (13,000 tests) Second year 11 Third review 4 Early problems common place first 2 yrs DSG able to fix rapidly due to good technology

Dockside Green 4 In summary the latest MOE Inspection Report (9482) from April 30, 2013 found 4 issues of non-compliance. Two of these alleged non-compliances were errors in interpreting the OC by MOE staff, one was an unjustifiable requirement in the OC which is not supported by MOE’s own regulation, and one was a minor administrative issue in the process of being rectified at the time of the inspection. The two OC interpretation errors by MOE staff were the only alleged non-compliances relating to the effluent and plant performance. In other words in 2012 the DSG discharge was in full compliance with OC effluent quality limits and the same appears to be true of 2013 (Table 1).

Visit to Sechelt

Plant can serve 14,000 pop. equiv.

$25 million

Cost of capital plus maintenance ~ $375 per user per year

Excellent process – beautiful result!

Sechelt plant on our site

Best guide to costs we have? Sechelt CRD for Colwood Colwood Design flow 4 Ml/day 4.7 Ml/day 4 Ml/day Gross cost $25 million $36 million $25 million? Grants 55% 63% 50%? Net cost $11.25 million $13.3 million $12.5 million? Cost to inc. Low (millions) High (tens of millions) Low (millions) capacity to 8 Ml/day

CRD project - Seaterra Esquimalt created a legal environment where the Minister cannot overule them. The McLoughlin site is no longer available for the project that CRD has received bids on. CRD is reviewing their options but there is no plan B currently They are predicting higher costs and the possibility of missing the deadline

What can Colwood do The four Mayors of the Westside municipalities are meeting Sechelt shows tertiary can be better, cheaper, faster Distributed = control our destiny, future revenues, local contractors, local stimulus, pay ourselves not CRD, certainty, faster results CRD has approved subject to conditions

Next steps Move forward decisively and quickly Avoid fines, avoid further costs of central plant Requesting instruction to prepare contract for Aqua-tex – avoid delays – uniquely qualified All other work (99%) to be awarded by competition Use Sechelt process

The team to get it done Project Advisory Team Local Advisory Committee(s) Owner’s Technical Consultant Project Managers Misc advisors on legal and financial Design\Build group

Financial $20,000 spent so far $350,000 budgeted till April 2015 – gas tax $1 million max by April 2016 – gas tax plus property taxes plus borrowing? In 2016\2017 plant constructed Tonight’s recommendation involves $139,000

Project Advisory Team Currently Aqua-Tex Scientific Operating on small purchase orders pending outcome of McLoughlin Need a longer contract to move forward Council policy requires RFP – may be waived Staff recommending waiving in this instance Keep Aqua-Tex on the job RFP for everything else (99%)

Aqua-tex Understand the MoE’s regulations Truly independent of CRD Long service to Colwood’s interests Talented team with the right connections Very capable with grants Diversity in the team International experience = exposure to many different technologies and ideas Truly innovative

Aqua-tex Retired Deputy Minister Retired Environmental Impact Assessment Biologist with MoE Ecological consultants – R.P. Bio History of win-win designs for developers IRM study for the Province, Colwood and North Shore Dockside Green (amendment of LWMP) Vancouver Olympic Village, Vancouver Island Tech Park and British Pacific Properties

Options Engage Aqua-Tex Scientific as the Project Advisory Team for Colwood’s sewage treatment plant and enter into a contract for this work ending with the completion of the pre-registration meeting with the Ministry of the Environment. Instruct staff to continue working with Aqua-Tex Scientific until an RFP process can be undertaken for the selection of a Project Advisory Team. Instruct staff to suspend work on the Resource Recovery Centre until more is known about the CRD’s intentions.

Recommendation That Council instruct staff to prepare a contract for Aqua-Tex Scientific in the amount of $139,000, with funds coming from Gas Tax, to be the Project Advisory Team for the Colwood Resource Recovery Centre, subject to all other expenditures on this project being under current City policies for procurement, and subject to a review and approval of the draft contract by Council.