Secondary Sewage Treatment - The Next Big Tax Bill

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Secondary Treatment Upgrade Cost $62 Million (2012 dollars)
Replace Effluent Outfall (Pipe) Cost $18 Million

At the Sept.23 Nanaimo City Council meeting Mr. Randy Alexander from the RDN gave a presentation outlining the required upgrades and associated costs at the GNPCC in order to meet the secondary sewage treatment standards mandated by both Federal and Provincial laws. This upgrade is estimated to cost $62 million in 2012 dollars.

In addition to these costs, the RDN is also faced with replacing the sewage outfall pipe which was anticipated to last until 2040 but is now faililng due to corrosion, at a cost of $18 million. Nearly 100% of this cost will be born by Nanaimo city taxpayers as they are the primary user of the sewage treatment facility on Hammond Bay Road.

There are a whole lot of variables in the estimates of what the end impact will be on Nanaimo taxpayers depending on the final cost of the work, how it is financed and when the work is completed. The estimates on the cost to the average $350,000 home which currently pays $104 per year to cover the cost of sewage treatment would increase to anywhere from $161 to $268 per year by 2022.

This is another example of senior levels of government mandating very costly treatment but as of now are not making any funding available to cover the costs. The outfall pipe which was expected to last until 2040 of course is not covered by any kind of warranty and the early replacement can likely be blamed on poor decisions 40 years ago or faulty pipe, not unlike the underground services in Cilaire that had to be replaced sooner than expected.  

In less than a decade Nanaimo will have put $62 million into a water treatment plant and now another $80 million into a sewage treatment plant. I wonder what formula is used to determine how much the city of Nanaimo residents can actually afford to pay for these improvements?