North Vancouver mayors call for inquiry into $3.86B wastewater treatment project

The mayors of North Vancouver are calling for a public inquiry into a wastewater treatment project whose completion has been delayed by more than five years and whose cost has gone up by more than five times its original budget.

The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant was first announced in 2011 as a $700-million project, but its estimated cost has since ballooned to $3.86 billion, and its timeline for completion has been pushed back from 2020 to 2030.

City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan and District Mayor Mike Little say they're calling for an "equitable approach" to sharing the increased costs.

In a joint statement released on Thursday afternoon, the mayors say they met with B.C. Premier David Eby the same day to voice their concerns.

In addition to the public inquiry, they're asking for a governance review of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, and a "fairness mechanism so that no municipality can ever again be held to a cost-sharing formula applied to costs that were never contemplated when the agreement was made."

"We feel that we're being asked to pay an unfair fair share of a project that has really spiraled completely out of control," Buchanan told CBC News over the phone after the meeting with Eby.

"We have tried to fix this from within the structure of the system that is currently in place and we haven't been successful."

Little echoed her comments.

"We had been consulted on the project back when it was $700 million. Now it's $3.86 billion and we're expected to pay a significant portion of that extraordinary cost," Little told CBC News.

"And we don't think that's fair."

In their statement, the mayors say North Shore households face additional annual costs of between $590 and $1,182 for the next 30 years, while some costs, including decommissioning and remediating the site of the existing treatment facility, have not yet been quantified.

Asked about the mayors' concerns, Mike Hurley, board chair for Metro Vancouver, says recent updates to financial policies ensure the regional district is able to deliver critical infrastructure "in the most affordable way possible" and align it with best practices for large utilities and cities across Canada.

He says Buchanan and Little both sit on the board for the region, so they know Deloitte Canada has completed an independent governance review, issuing recommendations that the region is in the process of implementing.

"I am not clear on their motivation for asking for something that is already being done," Hurley said in an emailed statement later Thursday.