Escalating costs for the Duteau Creek water treatment plant have raised a flood of concerns. The Greater Vernon Services Committee board was told Thursday that additional design work could lead the original price tag to go from $24 million to $27 million. But that news didn’t go over well with director Barry Beardsell. 
“Where are things going to end up?” he said, adding that he fears further increases could eventually occur. “When the cost overruns come in, what will it reach then? But chairman Gary Corner dismisses suggestions that costs for the treatment plant are going out of control. “It’s not going up in cost, it’s going up in design,” he said, adding that improvements are being considered that will make the water supply safe and the facility productive. “It’s certainly not a Taj Mahal. It’s designed for Duteau Creek water. It’s a plant that will handle that water well.”
Corner points out that the $24 million price tag was based on Greater Vernon funding it alone. “The plant was designed on no (government) grants at all. If there were no grants, we would have built a basic plant,” he said. The federal and provincial governments recently committed $13.8 million towards the project so Corner says that allows for some enhancements to be pursued. And by using the grant now for such improvements, Corner says taxpayers won’t have to pay for them in the future. The start of construction work has been pushed back because of the federal government’s requirement for an environmental assessment. “We are now delayed a month but it’s not that serious a thing,” said Bill Di Pasquale, project manager. It’s hoped that construction can still be completed by early 2009, with it fully operational in April of that year.
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