Four things

ONE

A warm thank you to everyone who left their homes last Monday night to join your neighbours in voicing their worries and concerns about the quarter-billion-dollar waterworks plans in Wellington. More than 500 of you! Your presence sent a loud and clear message to decision-makers that you want them to stop and re-evaluate their plans.

But we need you to come back to the Highline Hall on August 27. On this night Council will decide whether or not to proceed with the massive regional water plant and intake project. Shire Hall has moved the meeting to Wellington, anticipating a large crowd. Let’s not disappoint them.

TWO
Make an affirmative argument. Both sides. For those council members who trade in name-calling and harbour low regard for their fellow County residents— we insist that you make an argument. Make a positive statement for your position. Don’t rely on secondhand information or what you think you know. Don’t vote because staff or your fellow councillors want you to—or because you “trust staff.” Don’t vote in favour because you assume your constituents are narrowminded and self-interested.

Vote because you fully understand the risks and concerns. This is your solemn responsibility. You have had years to read and reflect on the reports, studies and best practices elsewhere. If you vote in favour, vote because you believe the financing risk, the debt burden and the execution risk are an acceptable trade-off for an uncertain future. Do it knowing you will be held accountable for your decision for decades to come.

Similarly, for those queuing up with questions and concerns on Tuesday, please don’t assume bad faith on the part of our public officials. Social media can be a toxic wasteland. Some of the claims made online are wildly off base. A lot of people find it too easy to casually impugn others’ motives—often behind a mask of false names.

It is too easy to read disagreement—even profound disagreement—with our politicians’ views on fundamental policy decisions as conspiratorial and worse. It’s wrong, unfounded and unhelpful in a community conversation— especially one as vigorous and heated as this.

So, please make an affirmative argument. The good news is that there is a lot of capacity in the system. We have time to get this right. We have the opportunity to ensure proper planning and financing are in place— before tenders are let. There is a better way forward (See story here).

THREE
Riddle me this: If growth is supposed to pay for growth, why are you paying for developers’ waterworks expansion in Wellington? Because you are. Right now. And you’ve been doing so for a few years now. Shire Hall states in its water bill stuffer that “current rates are set until 2026, and that they already include the costs for the water tower, trunk lines and water and wastewater plants in Wellington.” Why is that? County families are struggling to pay their own bills—why is Shire Hall making them pay developers’ bills too?

Existing waterworks customers don’t need this infrastructure. Developers do. An expert steeped in development law describes this arrangement as “upside down and backwards.” And “astonishingly reckless.” Why are we doing it? How was this allowed to happen?

FOUR
The Wellington water and wastewater plants were built to be expandable. The intake pipe is oversized for the plant. Village planners anticipated open-ended growth in Wellington when designing and building this plant. They made the prudent decision to build extra capacity into the intake and the plants. The water plant building was designed so that the north wall could be removed without weakening the structure or disrupting water treatment operations. Further, the water treatment system is modular, with two filtering trains working in a line. Additional trains may be added in a modified building to expand capacity—relatively inexpensively. Similarly, the wastewater plant was constructed comprising two modules. Other modules can be added to expand capacity. An equalization tank is already expanding capacity by managing heavy rain events.

Indeed, the engineering firm that produced Wellington’s Master Servicing Plan documented in May 2021 that expanding the existing water treatment plant “was viable and therefore added to the list of alternatives to be reviewed and evaluated in detail.”

Yet somehow, Shire Hall twisted this conclusion into an argument that these plants had reached the end of their functioning lives. It wasn’t true. It is demonstrably false.

What does this mean? It means we have time. The current market dynamics—interest rates, building slowdown across the country and the structural barriers that have always kept the County population in a narrow band of about 25,000 people—should give everyone pause.

If developers are keen to get started—notwithstanding these hurdles—let them fund the waterworks. All of it. We’ll reimburse them for the portion that benefits existing residents. This is how it is done elsewhere. This is how it should have been from the start. Developers’ infrastructure should never have been funded by existing water customers. It is not too late for Council to do the right thing.

We need your voice on August 27 in Wellington.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca