If there’s comfort to be had for ratepayers surrounding the high costs for Salt Spring’s planned Maxwell Water Treatment Plant, it’s that at least the price is not as unexpected as believed.
That slightly complex message came from North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) chief administrative officer Mark Boysen, who brought a mea culpa to district trustees at their meeting Thursday, Jan. 29. Boysen told the board a report presented at a special board meeting Friday, Jan. 16 contained an error: the “Class A” estimate, forecasting the cost of the new plant, was far more accurate than presented.
“There’s no way around it,” Boysen told the Driftwood last week. “It was a staff error in the estimates that were provided — we pretty solidly put our foot in it.”
A bit of inside baseball: a Class A estimate is a detailed, nearly definitive construction cost prediction used for planning — and budgeting — late in a project’s process, with an expected accuracy within five to 10 per cent of the median of competitive bids, according to Canadian Construction Association standards.
Between civil construction and engineering and project management, on Jan. 16 the board approved the project cost of $16.6 million — almost 14 per cent higher than the Class A estimate NSSWD staff had reported as $14.6 million.
But, Boysen said, that was staff’s mistake; consultants Kerr Wood Leidal (KWL) had submitted a Class A estimate back in September that worked out to a $16.1 million price tag — or just 3 per cent off the number that would be accepted by the board months later.
“Staff apologize for that error,” Boysen said. “We were moving quickly through a lot of different numbers.”
The price tag is still higher than some early estimates made by the district — including a familiar-sounding $14.6 million number, which had been used both for planning before the borrowing referendum and in a significant grant application the district made to the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund in late 2024.
That application was not successful, trustees learned Thursday; Boysen said staff had received an email that morning indicating that there could be an opportunity to carry over the application to the new provincial Build Communities Strong fund.
Trustees reiterated that the loan authorization secured by last year’s ratepayer referendum would stay the same, at $11.7 million in borrowing, and that there would be no new parcel taxes or water toll charges to make up the higher cost of the Island Health-mandated plant. Instead the district will put off the $1.5-million Crofton Road pump station until 2027 and use some capital and connection charge reserves.
Seeking savings, district trustee David Courtney made a motion to rescind the nearly $1 million construction engineering award, but the motion was not seconded. Most trustees on Jan. 16 had indicated they agreed with the staff assessment that any re-tendering at this point would not result in lower bids.
The water treatment plant project is being required by regional health authorities as part of an effort to remove more of Maxwell Lake’s organic matter, which reacts with existing chlorine treatment to create trihalomethanes.