‘Positive’ movement at stalled organic waste facilities, Montreal says

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The contractor responsible for building Montreal’s two organic waste treatment centers has “mobilized” crews to resume construction of the facility, where work has been stalled since mid-July, a civil service director told city hall on Tuesday.

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“Today there was a remobilization of crews at the two work sites. We confirm it,” Sophie Lalonde, director of Montreal’s building management and planning department, told council members at a special meeting that had been called at the behest of the opposition Ensemble Montréal party.

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“Is positive. There is a spirit of collaboration and cooperation in the current context.”

As reported in September, construction of a long-delayed composting center in the St-Laurent district and a biomethanation plant in East Montreal came to an abrupt halt on July 15 when employees of the construction company subcontracted by the city ​​businessman left work in a dispute with the entrepreneur.

The entrepreneur, Veolia Group, has two contracts with the city worth a combined $337 million to build, maintain and operate the facility that will treat the organic waste of Montrealers. The two contracts were awarded to Suez Canada Waste Services in 2019 at triple their initial estimate and after more than a decade of delays.

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French transnational Veolia Group acquired Suez earlier this year and now has the contracts for the two facilities.

Construction of the Montreal East biomethanation plant is 50 percent complete, while the St-Laurent composting center is 90 percent complete, according to the city.

Lalonde, who answered questions from councilors in a plenary session held in the council chambers, said it is too early to say when the facilities are expected to open.

Veolia informed the city last week that it was starting work again on both construction sites, but the work is limited in scope, it said. For example, the St-Laurent composting center is not yet connected to the Hydro-Québec network, so work in the coming weeks will consist of winterizing the facilities and installing temporary heating, he said.

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Before all work stopped this summer, the composting center was supposed to be operational in December 2020, but that date has been pushed back to August 2021 and then to this fall. Initially, the biomethanation plant was also supposed to open in December 2020.

Veolia and its main subcontractor, EBC, are involved in a cost dispute, but the dispute and the contract that binds them do not concern Montreal, Lalonde said. As with any turnkey project, the city’s contract with Veolia requires the entrepreneur to ensure that deadlines and specifications are met and within budget, he said.

However, Lalonde and his department also revealed in plenary that Veolia is also demanding more money from the city.

On July 26, 11 days after EBC workers left construction sites, Veolia demanded more money from the city to cover additional labor costs and material and equipment costs due to the combined impact of the pandemic, war of Russia in the Ukraine and the closure of factories in China. due to COVID-19, higher oil prices, and labor shortages due to all the infrastructure projects in Quebec.

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While the additional amount Veolia is demanding from the city was not made clear at the council meeting, Lalonde’s filing said Veolia had told the city in July that it had awarded EBC $32 million to cover “additional costs” and not could to finance more.

However, Lalonde said the city is not obligated to pay the contractor more because prices have gone up. A turnkey contract, she said, “provides for the transfer of risk to a third party.” He added that the burden of respecting the contract falls on the businessman.

The city and Veolia plan further discussions, Lalonde added. The city then had to decide whether any of the employer’s financial demands related to job site problems that weren’t covered by the contracts and therefore legitimate, he said.

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“It’s not a question of negotiation,” Lalonde said.

A second plenary session was held at the meeting to question officials about the city’s problems at its recycling sorting center in Lachine. City The city council voted in September to cancel the city’s contract with Services Ricova Inc. after reports that bales of contaminated recyclable material were piling up into the sprinkler system at the Lachine sorting center. Ricova warned the city that it would stop accepting recyclable waste collected through weekly curbside collection because the company’s market for selling the material abroad and locally had disintegrated.

Mayor Valérie Plante’s administration plans to transfer operations to a non-profit company, VIA Society.

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