Former Nalcor board members satisfied they were fully informed prior to Muskrat sanction

They say they were overworked and underpaid, but four former members of Nalcor's board of directors do not feel they were misled in the lead-up to sanctioning of Muskrat Falls.

"There's been no smoking gun that I can look at that anybody's revealed to suggest that we were misled," Terry Styles told the Muskrat Falls inquiry during a full day of testimony on Monday in St. John's.

Styles was the newly installed chairman of the Nalcor Energy board of directors at the time Muskrat Falls was sanctioned in late 2012, and said, "I was satisfied with the detail of information that we were provided."

There's been no smoking gun that I can look at that anybody's revealed to suggest that we were misled.- Terry Styles

Styles shared the witness stand with three former long-serving members of the board of directors, including Ken Marshall, Tom Clift and Gerry Shortall.

They were grilled for five-and-a-half hours by commission co-counsel Kate O'Brien about their involvement with the board, their views on Muskrat Falls, and their thoughts on a project that has seen its costs grow by billions and the schedule delayed by years.

Not in it for the money

The testimony weaved through a wide range of issues, from how the board was persistently under strength and compensation was practically non-existent, to the amount of scrutiny the project underwent and the role of the public utilities board in the whole process.

"The fact this group stuck around for a dozen years indicated that we weren't in it for the money," Marshall said.

"We were in it for the good of the province. We were in it for the good of the organization."

Like Styles, Marshall said he was confident in his decision to vote in favour of sanctioning the project.

And Marshall said everyone understood the gravity of the decision they were making during that fateful board meeting on Dec. 5, 2012, when all eight board members voted to approve the project.

"I don't think the minutes reflect the level of concern, angst, responsibility and the weight of the issues that we were deliberating that day," he said.

"Nobody was in a celebratory mood. Everybody felt the weight of this decision and the significance of the responsibility."

No regrets

All-in costs for the hydroelectric project have soared to nearly $13 billion since sanction, and first power is now delayed by two years until mid-2019.

But none of the former board members expressed any regrets about their decision, and denied they were blinded by so-called "confirmation bias" in the lead-up to sanctioning.

Shortall admitted he "much preferred" the Muskrat Falls option because it would remove the province's dependence on oil-fired generation at Holyrood and the volatility of oil prices.

"Having admitted that, I still would look hard at the isolated island option to see whether we're making the right decision." he said.

Marshall said he considered all the alternatives and, "There was never a marriage at any cost to Muskrat Falls. It was, let's make sure that all the viable alternatives are explored."

An overly aggressive construction schedule

But O'Brien said there were hints of trouble ahead, including an independent review of the project by the Westney Consulting Group.

The report raised concerns about the aggressive schedule put forward by Nalcor, which put the likelihood of Muskrat Falls achieving first power in mid-2017 at just one per cent, and questioned the level of contingency funding in the estimates.

None of the witnesses could recall reading such a report.

"Yes, I would have expected we would have had that information," Clift said.

The former board members also had some harsh words for the public utilities board, with Shortall referring to the PUB as "incompetent."

With debate over Muskrat Falls raging, the provincial government decided to asked the PUB to review whether Muskrat Falls or maintaining the current isolated island grid would be the least-cost option for the province's future electricity needs.

The board did not complete that review, saying it did not have enough information.

Shortall and others were not in support of sending such a question to the PUB, and said it "basically ducked the issue and left it on the table and resolved nothing."

We were aware of a possible slippage in the schedule shortly after (sanctioning) because we were informed that Astaldi did a very poor job of mobilization.- Gerry Shortall

Meanwhile, Shortall said it became apparent quite soon after sanctioning that problems would plague the project, and he laid the blame squarely at the feet of Astaldi, the contractor hired to build the generating station at Muskrat Falls.

"We were aware of a possible slippage in the schedule shortly after (sanctioning) because we were informed that Astaldi did a very poor job of mobilization," said Shortall.

All four former board members are scheduled for a second day of testimony on Tuesday.