New water infrastructure projects in Wellington have been paused after Tuesday’s marathon session of Prince Edward County Council.
During the long meeting, council passed a motion to pause construction on all further waterworks infrastructure projects that are not already underway, in order to implement program management practices and reduce financial risk.
The motion was first put forward by Councillor Corey Engelsdorfer, during a debate over approving a design tender for the new Wellington water treatment plant.
“We need to grow as a community. I understand that,” said Councillor Engelsdorfer. “I can see merit in the need to deliver fresh clean water from Wellington to Picton. But as much as I’ve tried, I just I don’t see a sound financial plan that makes it viable. We seem to be making a lot of decisions based on assumptions and the ratepayer is the one that’s going to be taking on the majority of the risk.”
Councillor Phil St-Jean was opposed to delaying the new water infrastructure.
“This is an all stop motion,” said Councillor St-Jean. “This is like saying, oh, we’re only pressing pause. No, you’re pressing hard on the brakes, and you’re coming to a screaming stop. This is not the right thing to do.”
After his objection, Councillor St-Jean asked municipal staff about the potential impact of pausing the projects. The municipal clerk reported that a delay like this could put grant funding at risk, potentially increasing costs to ratepayers when older infrastructure like the Picton water plant requires replacing.
The meeting of council went long into the night and into the following morning, with a large and rowdy crowd of Wellington residents. The crowd got so animated that at multiple points, Mayor Steve Ferguson had to call for order in the council chamber. Before council set to debating, they heard from the residents in a series of deputations and public comments. Over 15 speakers approached council to urge them not to move forward with the water infrastructure projects.
The most prevalent issue raised by the residents who spoke to council was the risk that development would not occur, and that instead of development charges paying for all the new infrastructure, water ratepayers would be stuck with the bill.
One of the deputations was by Joanna Green, from the Wellington Community Association. She said that they had retained legal council, and were considering some form of legal action in opposition to the planned infrastructure expansions.
“I am bitterly resentful of being put into a position of spending not just my own pension money, but also the hard-earned dollars of others to pad the pockets of an expensive Toronto lawyer,” said Green. “Mr. Mayor and councillors, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours.”
Representatives from several developers also spoke at the meeting, urging council to move forward with the projects.
Before the vote to pause new infrastructure projects, council did vote to approve a pair of tenders for parts of the water infrastructure.
First was the installation of the Wellington sanitary sewer pump, with the tender to be awarded to Strong Bros. General Contracting for $6,046,484. Out of that cost, $2,936,100 is to be financed through debt, and repaid via development charges. The motion also directed staff to enter into a subdivision agreement for new development in the area, with an amendment to move up the deadline from December 30 to October 1. The motion passed as amended.
In the second motion, a tender was up to be awarded to EVB Engineering for design work on the new Wellington Water Treatment Plant. This motion sparked long debate, which included an amendment to make the approval contingent on a successful application for grant funding from the Housing Enabling Water Systems fund. The amendment was approved and the motion passed as amended.
