5 composting plants promised in Montreal still not built more than a decade later as costs soar
Montreal's auditor general says cost of plan has doubled, despite downsize to 2 plants
It's been more than a decade since Montreal was promised five organic waste-treatment centres for the east, west, south and north ends of the island, but according to the city's newly tabled auditor general report, no plant has been built yet amid rising costs.
According to the original plans, which began under the Tremblay administration in 2010, at least four out of five complexes were slated to open in 2016. As of this year, no site has opened to allow for on-shore processing of organic waste into natural gas.
In 2013, the city presented a $237-million plan to build five compost plants on the island. It was counting on $130 million in subsidies from the provincial and federal governments.
By 2018, however, the costs had surged to $589 million and no compost plant was under construction, according to Auditor General Michèle Galipeau.
In 2019, the city revised its plan to build just two plants — one in the west (Saint-Laurent borough) and the other in the east (Montréal-Est) — for $298.5 million, postponing the other three indefinitely.
But even after those cuts, the auditor general found the city will have to pay almost double the price than what was presented in 2013 for the five facilities, due to delays in the project and the city's inability to obtain all the grants initially anticipated.
"The projected net cost of the project for the City should be between $162.9 million and $196.9 million... while only two [facilities] will be produced," reads the report by Galipeau.
Now, the first of the five plants will be a $175-million project, slated to open in Saint-Laurent in September and a second plant in Montréal-Est next year.
Delay due to project complexity, politics: city
The delays are mostly due to the complexity of the project and the time required to confirm the sites on the island, said the office of the mayor and the executive committee in an emailed statement to CBC Montreal.
"It should be noted that the previous administration did not prioritize environmental projects and in delaying them, the costs accumulated unnecessarily. This is in contrast to the current direction of the city which is moving toward a 'zero waste' approach," the statement said.
The city says another reason for a spike in costs is added requirements, like management and control of potential problems — all issues raised in public consultations.
Galipeau says the process to carry out construction of the project "was not sufficiently rigorous" and the "monitoring normally expected in a project of such complexity and scope was inadequate."
The city says it is always looking for ways to improve its practices and will do its best to follow the auditor's recommendations.
Some of those recommendations include breaking up the compost project into smaller, more manageable projects, ensuring rigorous accountability reporting to governance committees, and monitoring potential project risks and mitigation measures.
Currently, compostable green wast is disposed of at the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex and domestic waste is processed by private companies, the city says.
