With fines looming and grants being denied, Smithers council has decided to open its own purse strings to start the necessary upgrades to the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
At the Aug 8 regular meeting of council, council directed staff to proceed with the detailed design phase of the wastewater treatment plant upgrade project, at the cost to the town of an additional $400,000 to come from the Northern Capital and Planning Grant Reserve Fund.
In April 2020, Environment and Climate Change Canada issued the Town of Smithers a written warning for exceeding the authorized concentration of suspended solids in the effluent (25mg/L) and carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand concentrations (CBOD) of deleterious substances, also exceeding the 25mg/L allowable limit. In 2017 the average CBOD concentration for the Smithers WTP was 47.7mg/L.
If upgrades are not made the Town could face fines of up to $6 million.
The town was denied a federal and provincial grant in 2021 and a more recent grant application has been delayed. According to finance director William Wallace, the now expected one-year delay in the grant approval process increases the budget by 5 per cent, or $400,000.
The total estimated cost for the entire project is over $8 million, something that Mayor Gladys Atrill previously has said Smithers does not have the tax base for.
“It is super frustrating the amount of time it takes,” said Atrill. “From my perspective, it is ridiculous, other orders of government have pockets of money set aside for certain types of work, in fairness to all of us, you need to work through that. And give people answers in reasonable amounts of time so that the work can continue because meanwhile, we tie things up, we tie up staff doing the grant applications, then we wait.”
Smithers council also made a motion to send letters to the appropriate ministers, including Skeena Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bacharch urging them for answers to the grant application.
“We have to hurry, but so do the people working in the grants,” said Councillor Frank Wray. “We need to push our senior levels of governments for answers because when we don’t have an answer it ends up costing more money. Instead of being a year behind, now we are two years behind.”
READ MORE: Feds deny Smithers Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade grant
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