Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne has hinted he might open with a joke when he goes to Ottawa next month to accept a 2016 Sustainable Communities Award for the $24-million Sechelt Water Resource Centre (SWRC), the District’s new sewage treatment facility.
Milne told the Jan. 20 council meeting, “I’ll tell the collected elected officials from across Canada that this is a great, innovative project … Don’t try this at home.”
The SWRC was the signature project of John Henderson’s term as mayor, and controversy over how it was handled was a major issue in the 2014 election.
It was also the focus of a critical report released last April by the Auditor General for Local Government (AGLG).
Milne acknowledges accepting the award feels a bit odd. He told Coast Reporter, however, that the controversy around the cost and other aspects of the project has to be seen separately from its technology and performance.
“I, and the rest of the community, have always been positive about the technology and the actual treatment of the wastewater and turning that into a renewable resource and water we can actually use in a better way,” he explained. “But, there’s no question that the project in its entirety, in particular the process, the lack of input from the community, and the various issues around the financing was something that many of us were opposed to.”
As for “don’t try this at home,” Milne said, “it’s very clear that if I’m speaking to a room full of elected officials who are informed about the political process, that I’m going to have to acknowledge both sides of this project, and I’m going to have to acknowledge the Auditor General’s report and what it spoke directly to … No elected officials want to go through that kind of community uproar, and nobody wants to have an independent auditor come in and say those kinds of things.”
Contacted Tuesday about the award, Hender-son said in an emailed response: “It’s great for Sechelt to be recognized – along with all the people who worked hard to complete the project. Congratulations and best wishes to everyone.”
The Jan. 20 council meeting also saw final approval of a contract with the consulting firm Deloitte LLP for a “post-project completion review” of the project to meet one of the AGLG’s recommendations.
Coun. Doug Wright was the lone vote against, as he had been at the committee stage. He also offered an alternative.
“At this point we’re going to spend [up to] $150,000 that I believe will yield very little information,” he said. “My suggestion is that we defeat this particular recommendation and that when we get a new manager of engineering we ask the manager of engineering and our new CAO [Tim Palmer] to have a look at this particular construction project and do an internal review of it.”
No other councillors stepped forward to support Wright’s idea.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) says Sechelt is among six municipalities being recognized for projects in the areas of brownfield remediation, energy, neighbourhood development, transportation, waste and water.
“The 2016 recipients illustrate how municipalities can provide leadership on environmental protection and climate change in their respective communities,” said FCM president Raymond Louie in the press release announcing the award. “The benefits of such innovative approaches accrue to neighbouring communities and contribute to making Canada more sustainable.”
The awards are being handed out at the FCM’s Sustainable Communities Conference, in Ottawa, Feb. 9 through 11.
Milne said that as well as making a few brief remarks during the award ceremony, he’ll get a chance to offer FCM members a more in-depth look at the Water Resource Centre.
“It took a little while during the commissioning and adjustment process, but we have very consistent results now, and that’s what’s really important,” he said. “And a lot of that is because of the membrane filter, which is the third stage of treatment. It’s not actually because of the greenhouse and the plants.”
