The RM of Buckland council chamber was packed for Thursday night’s PARWU meeting. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

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When discussing why a costly venture to build a new water treatment plant failed, Don Fyrk states the board may have entered into the deal with their eyes wide open and should have instead been squinting a bit.

The Reeve for the Rural Municipality of Buckland and Chair of the Prince Albert Rural Water Utility (PARWU) Board made the comment to paNOW on Friday. The night prior, he found himself on the hot seat when dozens of frustrated utility subscribers showed up for the PARWU board’s annual general meeting.

When the initial project announcement was made in January, 2021, and involved a partnership between several RM’s and Town of Shellbrook, the initial price tag was around $45 million. That however changed to $52 million after a preliminary study was done by a Saskatoon consulting firm. By October, 2022, the project cost had ballooned to around $80 million.

Explaining that they were hearing strong indicators with respect to grant funding, Fyrk added the board was also told that if they were serious about the project, they’d have to spend some money first. One of those financial decisions was to buy a parcel of land for $900,000.

Fyrk explained they even had a construction company, knocking on their door, ready to start the build itself.

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“When we didn’t get any grants, that just killed us,” he said.

To pay for the engineering studies and the land acquisition, PARWU drained its one million dollar contingency fund and then used up nearly three quarters of a one million dollar line of credit.

“We tried something new and it didn’t work and we got the rug pulled out from underneath us,” Fyrk explained.

Going forward, PARWU plans to sell the entirety of the land it bought and subscribers to the utility will also for the next five years, see an additional $16 fee added to their water bills. Fyrk explained the goal is to have the line of credit paid off in five years.

“If by chance we get that land sold and we get that price way down and get it paid off in three years, well that 16 dollars comes off,” he said.

PARWU General Manager Ken Danger takes a question from a subscriber. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

Fyrk confirmed the idea for the project came about at the time of the Husky oil spill, when the City of Prince Albert had cut off the RM of Buckland’s water supply. For the next month, the RM relied on water being trucked in by way of big tankers and Culligan generously donated jugs of water to assist households.

“And the sad thing is, talking to Mayor Dionne, he said if it happens again, he’ll do it again. So we still have no guarantees,” Fyrk said.

Fyrk however noted that when the City reburbished its water treatment plant, and received grant money, the populations of the neighbouring RMs were included with it, thereby making it a Prince Albert Regional water plant.

“So I think if they cut us off again, we’d have to look at legal action,” Fyrk explained.

The purpose of Thursday night’s meeting was to first hear the contents of an auditors report, which found no wrong doing last year by PARWU. Noting how in the past there’s been about a handful members of the public show up to a meeting, Fyrk said he was glad to see everyone come out.

“It was mind boggling, I was really surprised and actually happy because it shows that people are concerned,” he said.

While there was an allotted time in the agenda for questions, members of the crowd did not wait and interrupted the auditor when they saw fit. Fyrk, who remained calm throughout, later acknowledged there were some really good questions.

“We had a couple people there that knew our bylaws better than we knew them and I thank them for pointing out certain discrepancies we were doing,” he said.

In addition to a lengthy discussion surrounding the increase to water bills, other concerns raised had to do with a perceived lack of transparency and just a general overall mismanagement of the project planning.

“You put the cart ahead of the horse,” one woman stated.

While Fyrk agreed, he also put a comment back to her.

“You’re speaking but you’re not offering any solutions,” he said.

Another subscriber pointed out that the project planning had occurred during the pandemic when members of the public could not attend meetings and there was not a reliable website to turn to for updates.

Fyrk confirmed on Friday that one of his first priorities next week will be to rectify that situation and find a more user friendly website for the utility.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @nigelmaxwell