Moncton dam project is $8M over budget

The cost of Moncton's new Tower Road dam and reservoir project in Turtle Creek is $8 million over budget, a 20 per cent increase over its original forecast.

The city is pointing the finger at a series of additional requirements from the provincial government for the project’s rising costs.

But the new dam is just the latest in a string of projects that have come in over budget in Moncton.

The new dam for the region's water supply was supposed to cost $35 million but Coun. Daniel Bourgeois said the latest figure is $43 million.

Bourgeois said the dam is half built but not yet paid for and he’s worried about additional costs.

"Who knows where the final amount will be," he said.

Jack MacDonald, the city’s engineer, said the provincial government is responsible for most of the $8 million increase.

The Department of Environment is forcing the city to protect 108 hectares of wetlands instead of the original 15, according to the city official.

And the Department of Transportation wants the dam to be thicker and longer to accommodate a new road on top of it, MacDonald said.

"Some of this stuff got kind of tagged on after the original discussions started and unfortunately it has added to the cost," he said.

But the fact a project is coming in over budget is not a new issue for the city.

Moncton taxpayers are already on the hook for $1 million in extra costs associated with the Transportation Discovery Centre, an extension of the Moncton Museum.

The University of Moncton’s stadium project overshot its budget by $4 million and the Kiwanis Park baseball field project was $400,000 over budget.

Bourgeois said the extra costs for the dam should be paid by the provincial government.

"Unfortunately, there's a lot of extra costs that really shouldn't have happened, really shouldn't have happened because of provincial modifications and guidelines," he said.

But Bourgeois said he wants new procedures in place before the city builds a fifth fire station, a $50-million police station and a $100-million downtown arena.

He said the city's internal auditor will be releasing a report soon on what went wrong with this overspending.

"We have an internal auditor who will make a report, will make recommendations, are the policies followed, do we need to adjust them, do we need to have more checks and balances in the system, what can we do to prevent these over-expenditures in the future," he said.