Photo: Luc Rempel

Salmon Arm city hall

Salmon Arm city council approved the award of a contract for more than $1 million for the conceptual design of an upgrade to the water pollution control centre and liquid waste management plan.

The upgrade will help Salmon Arm’s wastewater treatment plant accommodate up to 5,000 more people from its current capacity of 15,000.

“The update requires robust public and First Nations consultation and engagement to integrate community feedback into the long term wastewater treatment strategies, and ultimately will serve as a foundational document guiding the city's wastewater management approach over the current, coming decades,” said Jennifer Wilson, city engineer.

Wilson’s report recommended council award the contract to Brown and Caldwell Consultants Canada, despite the firm submitting the highest bid in the request for proposal.

“I have to be honest, what I'm struggling with is more than double the cost for the recommended proponent,” said Coun. Kevin Flynn. “And I don't know how I can sit here knowing virtually nothing about engineering and wastewater treatment plants. ...How I can make a decision when the difference in cost is that much?”

He also asked staff why a 10 per cent contingency was necessary for an engineering design, considering how different it was from cost overruns associated with a construction project.

“On this complicated of a project it could be anything,” Wilson replied. “They might start looking into the phase one environmental assessment for us and then find out that there actually is cause to do stage two. That would be something that we would want to have done in advance, and that would be something that staff would approve.”

She said even though the engineering firm is more expensive, it will save them money in the long run.

“On a project of this caliber, it is essential that we get an excellent engineering team on board,” she said.

Which firm had the right qualifications?

She said despite the top bid being much higher than the lowest bid, it was comparable to a few other bids. Eventually, the staff evaluation came down to which firm had the right qualifications for the project.

“We need a good project manager to keep it on schedule. We need liquid waste management professionals who have done that before, and that actually was one of the weaknesses of most firms,” Wilson said.

She said staff brought in outside professionals to help evaluate the bids. The balance was tipped in favour of Brown and Caldwell Consultants as it was the only firm with experience working on liquid waste management plans.

Shocked by the price

Some council members said the cost of the project surprised them.

“When I got to the numbers in this report, I had to go to the beginning of the report and read it again, because I couldn't believe that this could possibly just be the engineering portion,” said Coun. Sylvia Lindgren.

“I thought, 'Oh, I must have missed something. We're building something for that kind of money.'”

Wilson said another factor staff examined was the continuity process at each consulting company.

“One of the major complications we've run up to on bigger projects throughout the years, is that the length of time they take, often there is a huge turnover of professionals,” she said. “If you have a brain drain going on on the project, it can cause really significant issues. So we evaluated strongly retention for companies.”

Coun. Tim Lavery said he believes staff put in the time and effort to come to a sound recommendation.

“I fully support the efforts that staff have put into this,” he said. “I support how it is presented to us here now, and I will support the recommendations. I invest my trust in the professionalism of our staff going forward, and we need to do this.”

Other councillors also voiced support for staff’s recommendation.

“If you look at the numbers on their own, it seems to be a lot of disparity,” said Coun. Louise Wallace Richmond. “However, if you look at it as a percentage of the entire value of the project, which, let's not kid ourselves, could be up to $100 million, we're talking about the difference between 0.8 per cent of the project and 1.2 to 1.1 per cent of the project.

“We need to get this right, it could be the largest single infrastructure project salmon arm has ever paid for.”

Council voted unanimously in support of awarding $1,113,998 to Brown and Caldwell Consultants for the design of the stage four upgrade to the water pollution control centre and update to the liquid waste management plan.