How can Shire Hall start to restore public trust?

JOANNA GREEN
WELLINGTON COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

As residents watch the construction on the Millennium Trail in Wellington drag on, it is impossible to ignore that this municipal water infrastructure project has suffered from shocking systemic operational failure.

The Millennium Trail Water Trunkline Project is currently behind schedule and massively over budget. There have been many costly errors, ommissions, miscalculations and other project delivery shortfalls, prior to and during the course of the construction work. In addition, the work failed to honour what the public was repeatedly assured was in the original agreement: that following construction, the trail would be restored to its original condition.

In fact this project has become a case study in poor planning, lack of oversight, systemic operational failure, project mismanagement and inadequate communication.

The Wellington Community Association (WCA) is asking for direct accountability from the municipality, an explanation as to how and why these compounding errors were allowed to happen, and the implementation of rigorous policies and procedures to ensure that County taxpayers and ratepayers are protected from such colossal systemic failures ever being repeated in the future.

To understand the full scope of how disastrously mismanaged this project has been, we must look at the specific and ongoing failures, a few of which I will list:

DISRUPTION TO RESIDENTIAL STREETS
For 14 months, residents on Second Street, Niles Street, West St, and Wharf St have endured heavy, disruptive,daily dump truck traffic on their narrow, quiet residential roads. Why was there no dedicated construction access route planned?

THE OMITTED PUMPING STATION
This critical infrastructure was completely left out of the original tender, a miscalculation that has cost ratepayers millions of additional dollars. Furthermore, because of inadequate initial studies and poor consultant advice, the excavation site suffered continual flooding due to massive groundwater volumes, triggering lengthy delays. What specific oversight failures led to the omission of the pumping station and the severe groundwater flooding delays?

UNPLANNED FOR CONTAMINATED SOIL
The excess contaminated soil pulled from this pumping station site was either not anticipated or not properly planned for, leaving the community to deal with the unfortunate result of altered trail heights. Initially, following construction, the trail between Wharf Street and Maple Street no longer resembled the accessible, natural community asset it was before this project began. Instead, in some places, where it was previously level with the neighbouring residential properties, it had become an unattractive raised trail with hazardous drop offs on either side, towering over adjacent back yards, rendering it an inaccessible eyesore for those neighbours who back onto it, and disrespecting the surrounding landscape and the many users and residents who used to enjoy the trail. Who thought it was acceptable to leave it like this? Where was the Municipal oversight?

Why did it take a public outcry, before the County issued a Public Service Announcement regarding the excess soil, and offered a resolution of sorts? It should be noted that the removal of two to three feet of soil in the most affected area has reportedly cost around $1 million, and there is apparently yet more to be disposed of.

WINTER FLOODING ON WHARF STREET
Poor site management led to the severe flooding of Wharf Street during the winter months, creating hazardous conditions for residents.

LANE CREEK CONCERNS
The mismanagement reached a very worrisome point when Lane Creek became contaminated with silt, forcing the Ministry of the Environment to intervene in order to prevent potentially serious environmental harm.

NEGLECTED RESTORATION EFFORTS
While we appreciate that attractive and good-sized trees were eventually planted as part of the restoration, they are not being properly cared for or watered, meaning taxpayers will potentially have to foot the bill to replace them. What steps are being taken to ensure proper maintenance so that ratepayers do not end up paying twice to replace these trees?

ABSENCE OF MUNICIPAL OVERSIGHT
There has been virtually no day-to-day municipal oversight on this project. Contractors were left to police themselves. Instead of municipal staff catching errors and addressing them proactively, impacted residents were forced to act as unpaid site inspectors, reporting critical issues and concerns directly to their local councillor just to get a response.

CONTRACTOR FRICTION/LEGAL RISK
The Municipality initially retained Clearway Ltd and Strong Brothers Ltd to work concurrently, but coordination challenges emerged, and the two companies seemingly became unable to work together. Clearway has since departed the project, leaving Strong Brothers to finish the work; a fractured arrangement that exposes our municipality to potential legal and financial risk.

POOR COMMUNICATION / LACK OF ANSWERS
At a recent meeting attended by residents, contractors, and municipal staff, frustrated residents were met by woefully ill-prepared “professionals” who were unable to satisfactorily answer questions, or respond to concerns raised by neighbours, and did not even bother to bring site plans, diagrams or other relevant materials to the meeting.

FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
In 2021, this project was introduced with an engineering estimate of $12 million. By the time it went to tender in 2023, that figure had risen to $16.1 million, alongside an additional unplanned for $6 million tender for a newly deemed necessary sewage pumping station— bringing the total tendered price to $22.1 million plus HST. In June, staff reported that the project cost had ballooned to $31.1 million. It is unclear how much of the project’s contingency has been used thus far. Because this project is still ongoing, this $31.1 million figure is not the final tally and completely excludes potential additional costs the municipality may still incur.

EXTENDED TIMELINES / PROJECT DELAYS:
Construction began in the Fall of 2024 with a target completion date of June 2025. We are now 14 months past that deadline, and the work continues. Residents are still enduring the disruption of ongoing hammering, noisy heavy machinery, and diesel engines shattering their peace and quiet.

This project represents an alarming breakdown between municipal governance and project delivery. County taxpayers and residents expect and deserve much better.

If this municipality cannot successfully manage a 2-kilometer water pipeline project without running into serious issues such as environmental contamination, massive budget overruns, contractor walkouts, and extreme disruption to residents, how on earth can Shire Hall even consider moving forward with a 20-kilometer water pipeline to Picton?

To restore public trust and to prevent future similar occurrences from happening, the Wellington Community Association is seeking direct accountability and a clear explanation as to how and why these failures occurred. We are requesting an internal, or preferably an independent third-party review of the entire Millennium Trail Water Trunkline Construction Project. County water rate payers deserve a transparent and fulsome inquiry in order to determine why critical infrastructure was omitted from the initial tenders, how budgets and timelines were so disastrously exceeded, and what systemic breakdowns led to these and a multitude of other unsatisfactory outcomes. Rigorous new policies must be implemented immediately, to ensure that a failure of this magnitude is never repeated.