With the news that the Chapman Lake Expansion Project won’t go ahead, what is the lesson from this protracted, complicated, expensive experiment?
A project that would have cost $5 million, that would have been used only during extreme drought, the potential declassification of sections of a park with the strictest designation – and ostensibly the most straightforward and cost-effective means of solving the water shortage problem in the short term.
In an interview with Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) CAO Janette Loveys the day after the announcement, I asked about the $5 million long-term loan the SCRD received public approval for in 2016 because I wanted to understand the financial implications. The loan appeared in the 2019 budget and was the only cost I had associated with the project.
But that would be false. And the CAO corrected that assumption.
The SCRD had entered into a contract with AECOM in 2016, awarding the engineering firm more than $500,000, paid for from reserves, to design the system, manage the eventual construction of the infrastructure required, and get the regulatory approvals. At that time, the project was supposed to be completed that summer. An easy, short-term solution to the Sunshine Coast’s water shortage.
Those preliminary designs, as simple as they were, created a wellspring of tribulations for the SCRD. In June of 2016, after the SCRD had already decided to move ahead with an alternative approval process to secure the $5 million loan, AECOM told the board to expect delays. Before the trench could be dug and permanent pipe installed in the Class A park, changes to its park use permit and water licence would be required, and these applications triggered BC Parks to request a “vigorous environmental review,” according to Bruce Ford, the environmental lead on the project. That added another $123,425, this time from the Regional Water Service capital budget.
As Sean Eckford reported at the time, AECOM assured board members the delay could actually end up saving the SCRD money since there would be less of a time crunch. It would also give more time for public consultation.
Those would eventually prove to be sunk costs.
That’s because the most important piece – the requirement that the park boundary be adjusted or the park’s designation be changed – still wasn’t known, although a legal opinion requested by the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association said that was likely to be the case.
It was only after the public gave permission to the SCRD to borrow money to pay for the project that BC Parks warned issuing a permit without a boundary change or redesignation could pose “a legal risk,” and that an Act of the Legislature would be required.
Almost two years later, the simple, easy short-term solution is dead.
So what was the lesson learned? Perhaps it’s time the SCRD sinks some costs into wells.
