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Former B.C. deputy finance minister to lead audit of North Shore sewage plant

Peter Milburn has led previous audits of the Site C Dam and Vancouver School Board
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With a new contractor hired, work has ramped up again at the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. | Nick Laba / North Shore News

With previous experience examining big-budget projects and governance of public sector boards, Peter Milburn has been selected to lead an independent audit of the billions-over-budget North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Metro Vancouver announced the high-profile appointment Friday in a press release.

“The MWGK Independent Review Team has been selected to conduct the independent audit of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant Program,” Metro said in the release.

“The team will be led by Peter Milburn, best known for his role in the Site C Dam Review (Milburn Report) and the Kicking Horse Canyon Phase 4 Project, where he demonstrated his ability to conduct thorough evaluations of budget escalations and governance structures,” Metro said. Milburn also led a forensic audit of the Vancouver School Board in 2016.

Milburn, who was the province’s deputy finance minister before retiring in 2016, said the collective experience of his audit team positions it to conduct a “rigorous and impartial assessment of the project’s financial evolution, budget reliability, project management function, and governance.”

“We look forward to getting to work and to sharing results back to the board with recommendations for the future,” he said.

Metro board chair and Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley said he committed to bringing an independent party to review the sewage plant when he came in as chair.

“The reviewer was selected by an independent legal advisor. We look forward to sharing the results of this work with the public once complete,” he said.

The MWGK acronym stands for the team members, who have decades of combined experience leading and delivering major projects in B.C. and abroad.

Those include Gary Webster, an engineer who was previously appointed to lead and audit the over-budget effort to upgrade the Port Mann Bridge and surrounding highway.

Also on the team is Ed Green, lead cost estimator for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain expansion. And construction consultant Al Knight will lend his experience in areas such as financial risk assessment.

North Van District also calling for public inquiry

Metro first announced the independent review last June, after newly released cost estimates put the beleaguered project at a budget of $3.86 billion. The new plant was originally expected to cost around $700 million when it was first revealed in 2017.

To pay for the over-budget plant, the average North Shore household will pay an extra $590 on its utility bill for 30 years.

While Metro has restarted construction with a new contractor on the previously stalled project, the regional authority is still locked in legal action with its previous contractor, Acciona Wastewater Solutions.

Acciona claims it offered measures to complete the project by 2025 at a cost of $1.05 billion, and that Metro has misled the public on “important issues.”

Metro has filed its own claim that Acciona failed to properly follow project specifications, and that the company should refund taxpayers $500 million.

In addition to the independent audit commissioned by Metro, the District of North Vancouver has called for a provincial public inquiry on the plant, citing concerns around impartiality of the regional review.

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