Major upgrades to Canmore’s wastewater lift station four planned for this year needed more budget money to be approved by council this week before the project could move forward.
The original budget of $420,000 has unanticipated costs and additions to the project totalling $230,000 – making the total project cost $650,000.
While council approved the change in budget, there were concerns expressed by elected officials that this is not the first utility project by contractor Epcor to come back because of insufficient budgets.
“I am prepared to support the option given here as there does not seem to be any alternative,” said Mayor John Borrowman.
Councillor Sean Krausert said the change in budget is not necessarily a cost overrun in the project, but the real cost of the improvement as an example of “we just had the wrong cost to begin with.”
“It always puts a sour taste in the mouth when we have to add money to a previously approved budget, but it is an obviously needed project which is why it was approved in the first place.”
Manager of public works Andreas Comeau said the tender process for the project to replace the pumps in the lift station, which is located near Prospect Heights, saw only two bids and both exceeded the set budget.
The primary focus of the project is to replace five smaller pumps that are 20 years old and no longer functioning well and hard to get replacement pumps for, with three new pumps.
Comeau said unaccounted for scope in the project resulted in bids returning at a higher cost than budget. That scope includes the fact the lift station needs to have a bypass in place when it goes offline for improvements to occur. In addition, there is a power service upgrade and force main valve replacement that weren’t anticipated.
Comeau added that a review of all municipal facilities revealed the roof of the building needs maintenance and $20,000 was added for that work while upgrades are being done.
Epcor manager for construction projects Dillan Buckingham told council not accounting for the $90,000 to bypass the lift station in the project before it was tendered “was a big miss.”
He also explained an increase in the contingency budget from five to 10 per cent, or $33,500, was recommended by the engineering consultant. Buckingham said once the lift station begins to be taken apart, there may be other unexpected costs to cover.
However, another area of cost increase was the fact the Canadian dollar lost value over the past year and that affects the cost of parts and pumps coming from the U.S. Those market conditions resulted in $90,500 addition to the budget.
Comeau said the change in budget will not affect utility rates either, as the additional funds for the project will come from the utility reserve.
