Council gives green light for sewage plant

City council has voted to allow a tender to go out for a private company to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a $30 to $40-million biosolids treatment plant in Greater Sudbury.

The decision was reached at the Jan. 26 city council meeting after several councillors looked for last minute clarification on the details about the project from city staff and consulting company KPMG.

For the past 30 years, the city has been dumping untreated sewage into Vale’s tailing ponds in Lively. After an environmental assessment in 2009, Vale and the Ministry of the Environment said the practice must stop by the end of 2012.

City staff recommended a biosolids treatment plant be built on Kelly Lake Road under a design, build, finance, operate, maintain (DBFOM) model. The DBFOM model would be eligible for 25 per cent of the funding — up to $10 million — from the federal government through a private-public-partnership (P3) agreement. The facility would remain the property of the city but the responsibility and maintenance would fall under the private sector.

Ward 1 Coun. Joe Cimino said he wanted to know what would happen if the funding didn’t come through from the federal government.

Doug Nadorozny, CAO of the City of Greater Sudbury, said the city has been working with the federal government for the past seven months and if the funding didn’t come through, city council and staff would have to review the project.

Ward 3 Coun. Claude Berthiaume said he agreed something had to be done, but wanted to know what would happen to the tailings ponds after the new treatment plant was complete.

“Is there any possibly of any recurrence of the smell because the sludge will still be there?” he said. “Will this really solve this issue?”

Keven Shaw, director of engineering services for the City of Greater Sudbury said it will take three to five years after the city finishes dumping sludge into the tailings ponds for odour issues to no longer be a concern.

“The city will continue to monitor the possibility of odour generation in those ponds,” he said.

Ward 10 Coun. Frances Caldarelli said she understood why members of council were asking questions to clarify all aspects of the project.

“This is obviously an expensive project and a fairly complicated project but certainly something that has been done in other places,” she said. “I’m sure it can be done and it can be done well, but I do understand why councillors...want to be very sure that we know what we’re doing.”

Despite that, Berthiaume said he wasn’t convinced the P3 plan was the best decision for the city.

“I cannot accept P3s,” he said. “I believe our employees can do this a lot better and cheaper. However, I can understand my colleagues looking at a possibility that they will be getting up to $10 million, (but) we don’t know yet if we’re going to get $10 million.”

Berthiaume also said although the city is under a tight deadline to finish the project by the end of 2012, he’s not concerned about time.

“We have succeeded in the past to extend the time to do the Levack water project,” he said. “I’m sure that we probably will be able to negotiate with Vale as well as the Ministry of the Environment that we could have more time to do this.”

The motion was carried 11 to one, with Berthiaume being the only councillor to vote against the proposal. Ward 2 Coun. Jacques Barbeau was not at the meeting.The topic is expected to come back to city council in July, once the RFP process is complete.