Colliery Dam Park Questions

Why Was This Decision Made Without

Public or City Council Input?

How Did The City Manager Determine Price?
Tea Leaves or Star Gazing?

The following statement appears on the City of Nanaimo website with regards the Colliery Park Dams.


Can the dams be upgraded or replaced?
It is not clear if this would be feasible under today's Dam Safety Regulations. Further, the feasibility of upgrading or replacing the dams is also uncertain due to the geological conditions underneath the dams' structures. If it were possible to reconstruct the dams within the prevailing geological conditions and regulations, it would be extraordinarily expensive and very disruptive to both the surrounding neighbourhood and park. The City would also be creating a structure that would have to be dealt with several years from now, just as we are dealing with an old structure today.

You may recall when city council under the direction of city staff first announced this extreme danger, which they have known about for two or three years, the public was told that to replace the dams could cost as much as $30 million. The following quote appeared in the Nanaimo Daily News on Oct. 31/2012, "To rebuild the dams would cost about $20 - $30 million, said Sims, compared with $7 million to demolish them."

It is now the findings of the engineers hired by the city that this cost to rebuild both dams would $8.6 million with a contingency built in, before the contingency the cost was less than $6 million. Where in the world a $30 million figure came from is a question needing answered by Mr. Kenning, the city manager.

You really have to ask why city staff presented such a ludicrous estimate in the first place unless they had a clear agenda to get council and the city  onside with their pre-determined policy of removing the dams.

Clearly this is a case where it would appear that city staff took it upon themselves to establish a policy vis a vis to remove these dams regardless. This is a policy that city council should have been invloved with years ago when this whole project was first being investigated.

Even more importantly the citizens of Nanaimo should have been directly involved before any such decision was made. Clearly just another sign of the oligarchy masquerading as a democracy in the governance of Nanaimo.