Shoreline Trail Sewer Project

This was originally posted on March 13, 2024, on my Councillor Facebook page.

On March 5, during the Special Council public input portion of the meeting, a resident spoke on the cost of the sewer replacement project. Some details were missing and I would like to clarify to help everyone understand the timeline of decisions, the total cost and some of the trade-offs.

In the comments, the speaker referred to a tweet from the Mayor on Nov 28, 2023, referring to a $21 million project - to be clear this is the combined cost of both the sewer replacement and the trail upgrades.

• The total cost of the sanitary sewer project was $15.8 million.

• The initial sanitary sewer rehabilitation budget included in the Capital Plan was $10.1 million.

• At a closed meeting on March 22, 2022, an additional $5.7 million ($5,666,148 to be exact) was approved because the tender process did not result in an option that was within the budget

• This decision was released to the public on September 27, 2022.

• This is also one of the largest utility rehabilitation projects that the City has ever undertaken.

The remaining $5.3 million was for Phase 2 of the Shoreline trail upgrades. Funding sources for the trail upgrade consisted of $4.1 million from the Density Bonus Reserve and a Translink grant for $1,178,000.

The combined project cost was just over $21 million.

I think it is also worthwhile to provide a bit more detail on the “high-tech solution”. The other option (low-tech, status quo) was digging a trench from Old Orchard Park to Murray St.

Why the trenchless option was chosen: Due to the environmental, cultural and archaeological sensitivity of the area, staff presented analyses on several possible approaches to the construction and the majority of the Council supported the staff recommended option for trenchless construction. This choice had many benefits, including:

• Saving hundreds of trees from being removed (at least 200 trees),

• GHG savings of approximately 410t - this is a 98% reduction compared to open cut/digging a trench

• Avoided the consumption of 141,000 L of diesel fuel and construction equipment in the park,

• Flexibility in avoiding environmentally sensitive areas like salmon-bearing streams and large trees,

• Minimal disruption to wildlife,

• Allowing the park and trail to remain at least partially open throughout the project.

All decisions require trade-offs. In this case, despite the slightly higher project cost for trenchless construction, many benefits resulted in the best option for the community and the environment.

Other replacement options would have caused the loss of trees, disruption to habitat and environmentally sensitive areas, as well as significant costs and time to rehabilitate the area, not to mention the disruption to residents using the trail. We know that trees and our ecosystem are important to residents so I don't feel that cutting them down to dig a trench would have been supported.

Anyway, I hope this clears up any misconception about the total cost and why the trenchless solution was chosen for the Shoreline Sewer Project. This project won Honourable Mention for 2023 Trenchless Technology Project of the Year. If you are interested, you can read more about it here.

References:

You can watch the November 24, 2020, Regular Council Meeting (It was originally at the Nov 3, 2020 meeting but it was postponed.).

The staff presentation outlines very clearly why the open-cut approach to replacement was not a desired solution. The staff report can be found here.

Staff presentation (on-table) is on page 35 of this pdf.

The motion for more funding was made on March 22, 2022, in a Closed Meeting, and released on September 27, 2022. The resolution can be found here (item 12.3).