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WEST SHORE LETTERS: Colwood sewage letter hits the mark

Residents should be worried about sewage project, given city's track record

Re: Colwood should think twice before locating sewage plant (Letters, July 2)

Kudos to Dave Wing of Langford who sums up in his letter the concerns residents of Colwood should have about letting council proceed with putting a sewage plant, given the fiascos of the two real estate projects on Wale Road and Colwood Corners.

He expressed my concerns exactly. Small councils do not have the necessary experienced staff to deal with large construction projects, as evidenced by the lack of requirement of a performance bond to guarantee satisfactory completion from the companies whose projects failed.

If a performance bond had been held on the first stage of the Capital City Centre project, steps could at least have been taken to protect what had been built so far against the weather as opposed to it being a total write-off. Council has a duty to protect the city and its taxpayers against the impact of incompetent and/or inadequately funded construction companies.

Change orders are the norm on large projects – just look at the example of the contractor for the Johnson Street bridge, who requested an additional $7.9 million on a fixed price contract of $90 million.

The prospect of large cost overruns on a wastewater plant project, or the cost to fix a plant having a catastrophic failure such as (what)   happened in Halifax being borne by the small base of Colwood taxpayers is a very daunting one indeed.

Eileen Bell

Colwood