Work on Ladysmith’s new biosolids facility has been progressing steadily with a few bumps along the way which will likely cause it to be slightly over budget, according to a staff report.
The contract council approved for the composting facility was anticipated to be just over $2.99-million, excluding taxes.
An itemized spreadsheet presented at the last city council meeting on Sept. 18 shows all of the different elements of the project.
As of Aug. 31 just over $1.3-million had been spent, or about 44 per cent.
However, director of infrastructure services Goeff Goodall noted in his staff report that he forsees additional costs of $61,000 “due to unforeseen costs in geotechnical works as well as additional work for the buidling code analysis and coordinating registered professionals.”
“There is no contingency on this project,” he told council at its recent meeting.
“We’re doing the best we can to shave every corner and keep everything as close to being on budget as we can but there’s probably going to going to be some little pressures here and there, nothing giant, but there’s probably going to be some pieces.”
Construction of the new biosolids facility on Thicke Road is being funded through a $570,224 grant with the rest coming from sewer reserves.
Goodall also said the soil conditions on the entire site weren’t good and about a metre of material had to be removed and replaced before concrete could be poured.
“We just ended up having to remove the material so there was equipment rental and a lot of extra material that we had to import into the site,” he said.
Crews are now working to finish erecting the tent structure that will house the compositing operations.
The staff report was only for information and any formal requests for additonal funding would come back to council in the future.