Desludging the city’s old sewage ponds will take twice as long and could cost twice as much as budgetted for.
City staff recommended a budget of $450,000 to clean the former sewage ponds, but the lone quote they received was for $1 million
Mayor Sharie Minions said the city is seeing “astronomical price increases” affecting many city projects.
“We are seeing increasing costs like we’ve never seen before, however, this work is incredibly important to do,” she said. “Anyone who has been down to the Victoria Quay in the last couple of weeks has certainly noticed the smell and that is as a result of the old ponds from our old sewage lagoon needing to be desludged and cleaned out, so we are happy to be starting that work, it will be a bit of a process still but we’re committed to that work getting done so that our community can enjoy the waterfront without having to be burdened by that smell.”
City Council approved spending the budgetted amount on clearing some of the sludge this year, and will renegotiate with the contractor to possibly complete the work next summer.
The City engineer warns work must be done as the ponds are no longer aerated so the smell will be worse.
Mayor Minions says its as worse as it’s ever been.
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