City hall is hoping it can acquire federal funding to upgrade the Crescent View Lift Station, a project where the costs have “ballooned” by nearly 150 per cent since last fall.
The department of engineering services had estimated in November 2022 that the project budget would be $26,655,000, with costs spread out from 2023 to 2025. It also received approval from city council to issue and award a tender to construct the sewage-related structure.
However, over the next eight months, the cost skyrocketed to $66,410,000, a jump of $39,860,000 or 149.6 per cent.
The engineering department returned to council during the July 10 regular meeting and asked members to approve an application to the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) through Infrastructure Canada to help fund the Crescent View Headworks project.
DMAF’s objective is to strengthen the resilience of communities at risk of infrastructure failure, which could result in threats to health, safety, critical infrastructure and interruptions to essential services, disruptions in economic activity, and higher costs for recovery and replacement.
Council unanimously agreed to support the petition, while it also agreed that the City of Moose Jaw would meet legislative standards, meet the terms and conditions of DMAF, conduct an open tendering process, manage the project, fund the project’s municipal share, fund ongoing operation and maintenance costs and follow any federal or provincial environmental mitigation measures.
DMAF will provide funding up to 40 per cent of the project cost — or $26,564,000 — leaving the city to cover the remaining $39,846,000.
Since the engineering department had budgeted $26,655,000 for this initiative, that leaves $13,191,000. However, because council in April deferred the South Hill Reservoir Pump project upgrades, that freed up $3,950,000, leaving the city to cover the overall shortfall of $9,241,000.
Finance director Brian Acker acknowledged during the meeting that the initial project costs had “ballooned” and increased more than expected. However, if the municipality acquired the federal grant, it could likely cover the shortfall.
“The Crescent View Lift Station replacement is a critical project for the City of Moose Jaw. We going to have to find a way to move it forward,” he said. “But … at a cost of $66.4 million, I’m not sure how we are going to do that. We are going to run into significant issues over the next five years or so if we don’t do that work.
“I would view this probably as our No. 1 priority for capital projects … .”
The fact the project has jumped to $66.4 million is “fairly disheartening and daunting” and may force council to take every other project off the books to figure out how to pursue this initiative, said Coun. Heather Eby. She hoped they were successful in acquiring this grant since it was unlikely these high prices would ever decrease.
“We have a lot of other projects that are also pressing. We’ll have some hard decisions to make, which is not going to be fun,” she added. “We’ve finally got to a place where we’re willing to make hard decisions to do big projects — and then the prices inflate and we just can’t find a way to do them.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, July 24.
