City set to save $2.1M in wastewater change, with some risks associated

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The City of Stratford will be taking over its wastewater pollution services in-house, a decision set to save it $2.1 million over the next ten years.

City council voted to begin that transition at its regular meeting on June 22, following a report from Municipal VU Consulting Inc. (MVU), a consultancy firm retained to analyze a possible transition. The city’s contract with the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA), the organization which has operated Stratford’s plant since 1993, is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2027. As Jim Harnum, president of MVU, said, there are a few gaps in the current OCWA contract that means a change was preferable.

“There are no … performance incentives or key performance indicators in this contract,” Harnum said. “There's no efficiency benchmarks. There's no energy targets that meet with your corporate environmental and emissions plan. There's no defined service levels. The only defined service level is that it must be in compliance. There's a limited line of sight for the day-to-day operations and the preventative maintenance versus reactive maintenance, and really, what we're getting at there is you really have to trust that they're doing the appropriate maintenance on your facility. There's no line of sight, you can't tell what they're doing, they're solely responsible for operating the plant, and then they tell you annually what maintenance is required on the plant.”

By MVU’s metrics, not only would bringing those services in-house save the municipality $2.1 million (and perhaps more if OCWA’s prices continue to rise), but it would also have greater flexibility and adaptability and much greater transparency and accountability, an issue that originally spurred the city into retaining MVU.

As noted in the staff report, in 2024 an overpressure event at the pollution control plant permanently damaged equipment.

“Since that time, progress has been made with OCWA’s support; however, the event has also brought attention to some challenges associated with the current contracted service model, including limited city visibility into certain operational matters and incident details,” the report reads. “Staff recognize that some information-sharing limitations may be inherent in the current arrangement.”

There are some risks associated with bringing services in-house, however – though most of those risks are during the transitional period. There are operational risks getting the seven full-time equivalent staff trained and recruited in a competitive market, transition costs that could exceed the estimated $1 million and the loss of OCWA’s established provincial emergency network (although the city would be able to tap into other municipalities in the event of an emergency).

After MVU’s report was presented and Harnum answered a few clarifying questions, council voted unanimously to further explore the water pollution control plant services in-house.

OCWA will have the opportunity to submit a draft contract renewal by July 10, to be reviewed by council at its July 27 meeting where it will debate the services future delivery model.

To read the full report on the services, visit https://tinyurl.com/yx3ybya2.