Wallaceburg water option approved

Wallaceburg is officially keeping its water source in the Syne River.

The Chatham-Kent Public Utilities Commision put the stamp of approval on a staff recommendation to keep the status quo, and rehabilitate the Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant.

Long, two year process

“It has been a two year odyssey,” said Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley, who also sits on the PUC. “It has been a lot of work. I said that if the result came for today that was positive for the community, it would be worth it, and it was.”

Wesley said the decision made by the PUC, which was voted on at a special meeting held at the Wallaceburg Municipal Centre, was a great long-term move.

“This is one of those decisions I think we will look back on in 20 to 25 years and say, you know what, this was a good thing we did,” Wesley said. “I am not going to belittle Lake Erie or anything. The water that comes out of there is fine, but that lake has some problems and the governments on both the Canadian and the U.S. side need to deal with it. It’s not getting better.”

Wesley added: “This to me was the best option. We had the evaluation committee, public input, we asked the community what they thought, the community told us what they thought and we listened. That’s really what government is all about.”

Not a unanimous vote

While the recommended option was approved by the PUC, the vote was not unanimous.

South Kent Coun. Trevor Thompson was the only member of the Commission to go against it, resulting in a 6-1 vote.

“I am just concerned that this isn’t the best thing for all of the PUC members of Chatham-Kent,” Thompson said following the meeting.

“I got a lot of feedback from the fine folks here in Wallaceburg. I respect everything they said. I just felt that going with the Chatham option was the best bet in the long term. I felt that $30 million, and as you heard that didn’t allow for inflation, over 40 years, I just felt there are things we could do with that money to move this municipality forward. ”

A PUC report shows the initial up front cost for the Wallaceburg option (2.a) would be approximately $3.4 million, while the upfront cost for the Chatham option (3.a) would be approximately $11.9 million.

However (see graphic below) the 40 year projections for cumulative cost, is $67.2 million for the Wallaceburg option, compared to $37.5 million for the Chatham option.

Thompson said tapping into Chatham made the most sense from an economic standpoint.

“It goes a little bit back and forth, because the $30 million gap doesn’t allow for inflation, so each and every year inflation grows,” Thompson said.

“So that $30 million gap legitimately could be $60 million dollars and then you factor in the cost of borrowing the money, the savings you would get from the Wallaceburg plant. So for me they kind of cancelled each other out truth be told. Over the long term, allowing for inflation, I still think you’re going to see a $30 million difference.”

“I respect the decision that was made today, I have no ill will,” Thompson said. “It’s just I feel it wasn’t the best way forward for the Municipality. Just economically, on a full 100% economic basis.”

Thompson added: “I understand that we are a consolidated Municipality and the folks in Blenheim pay for whatever happens in Wallaceburg, and vice versa. That’s the way it should be. I felt we could have saved $30 million or an unknown quantity over 40 years by going with the Chatham choice.”

Wallaceburg councillor disagrees

Wesley told the Sydenham Current he disagrees with Thompson’s claim.

“One thing I do want to make very clear, because commissioner Thompson and I have had it out a bit this week, is that the difference in rehabilitating the Wallaceburg Water Plant and a Lake Erie option is not $30 million,” Wesley said.

“It is not even close to that because there is no cost to borrowing. I was getting a little ticked when that was out there but I just want to make sure that was clear. When you look at the cost of borrowing, the two options are actually over the course of time about the same. Pretty close.”

Wesley said during the PUC meeting he would argue that both the Wallaceburg and Chatham options have the same 20-year cost.

“When you look at the difference in the upfront capital, you’re actually saving money for the first 10 years because option 2.a requires less money and those savings can be used to offset the cost for those 10 years.

Wesley said during the meeting the 40 year costs are a long time down the road.

“At that time I’ll be 98-years-old and hopefully still moving around,” Wesley said. “There are a lot of things from technology, to grants, to growth that can happen in the interim.”

10-year plan set to be implemented by the PUC

Tim Sunderland, general manager of the PUC, said the Commission also voted to adopt a 10-year plan for the rehabilitation of the Wallaceburg plant.

“Our first step will be to look back and see what is first on the list, and so some engineering on that, and then move forward with some dollars and construction,” he said.

“At the start of this whole process Stantec came in and they did a condition assessment on the Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant. They graded things in high, medium and low priority and that’s what filtered down into this ten year plan. We are looking through staging and work based on the priority that has been graded.”

Sunderland said the environmental assessment process has been followed through.

“For administration in the PUC we have to work within the process as laid out to us from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change,” he said.

“This is the process that was set in place for us. We added a few steps along the way to ensure that we were coming to the final decision, that the outcome was the best outcome. Yes, today we ended up getting there. Commission approved that decision, and now we can move forward with the work.”

Sunderland said once environmental assessment goes into the final stages, they have to put it out for public review for 30 days.

“When it is out for public review for 30 days anyone can appeal the process,” he said. “If someone submits an appeal, then we have to look at that appeal and it could delay this project to be able to move forward because we have to address that appeal.”

Sunderland said the Ministry will also look back on the environmental assessment process completed in Wallaceburg.

“They look at all the components, all the public information sessions that we held, the information that was provided, the feedback from the stakeholders that were provided back. They look at that entire package to make sure that the process had taken place within the rules. If all that takes place, then they are in agreement with the process.”

He added the project will be funded through the PUC’s lifecycle budget and will not result in a rate increase.

Excellent turn-out

Once again the community of Wallaceburg stepped up, and over 30 people filled the chairs set out in the former Wallaceburg council chambers for the special PUC meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

This did not come to any surprise to Wesley.

“You know what, and I don’t mean this in the wrong way, but people from Wallaceburg we have actually come to expect this and so its good,” he said.

“I have had people come up and say to me ‘I can’t believe your community is so passionate about everything.’ I said ‘well yeah, we come by our defensiveness honestly.’ That’s what you want. I said to some people, ‘don’t hold it against our community, because we do this because that’s what we should be doing.’ And we are doing it.”

Wesley added: “We asked for the communities input, they provided it. “Thankfully we listened and that is great.”

Background

Stantec Consulting was hired by the PUC to conduct an environmental assessment of the future of Wallaceburg’s water back in 2014.

Wallaceburg and the surrounding area obtains its municipal water from the Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant, which was constructed in 1946 and has undergone major upgrades in 1948, 1980, and 2009.

The Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant raw water intake is located in the Chenal Ecarte, which is fed by the St. Clair River.

The Wallaceburg Distribution System is also interconnected with the Lambton Area Water Supply System, St. Clair Township Distribution System and the Chatham-Kent North Kent System.

PUC officials say the purpose of the environmental assessment was to provide an environmentally sensitive and sustainable framework to assess the various water supply alternatives within the study area.

Stantec presented four potential options as part of their assessment.

Stantec’s “preferred alternative” initially was to connect to the Chatham water supply, which gets its water from Lake Erie.

However, an evaluation committee was formed to analyse each of the options.

Rehabilitating the Wallaceburg Water Treatment Plant using the existing intake in the Snye River scored the highest on the matrix completed by the evaluation committee, with an 85.50% score. The option to connect to the Chatham water system via Eberts along Baseline Road, received the second highest total with 77.35%.

Following the work done by the evaluation committee, Stantec and the PUC chose the Wallaceburg option as their “preferred solution” and presented this as a recommendation to the Commission last month.

– Photo: Wallaceburg councillors Carmen McGregor and Jeff Wesley chat with Mayor Randy Hope following the special PUC held in Wallaceburg on Wednesday, March 2, 2016.