Valley Fiber stuck in a rut with Taché council

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/12/2023 (492 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Putting in 2,657 kilometres of fibreoptic cabling to connect 48,500 homes can make a mess.

But mitigating that mess and cleaning it up is a responsibility that Taché council and staff are worried Valley Fiber and its contractors are not taking seriously enough after hearing a number of complaints from farmers, drivers and others.

Public works manager Andy Brandt said he had a 45-minute conversation with one contractor Quantum Utilities out of Oak Bluff, who also sent an email on its efforts.

“I’m not going to say they fixed any of our concerns. It kind of put them on the straight and narrow. I noticed a huge change in how they’re conducting their events, or installing their lines and blocking the roads and creating an inconvenience to us. But they are still plowing and making a real mess,” said Brandt during Taché’s Dec. 11 council meeting.

“It’s hard for us to document all the damage,” he added.

Brandt has been trying to keep track of where his department needs to make repairs in the spring.

“In the spring I’m going to drive with Quantum,” explained Brandt.

Problems mentioned include ruts in a farmer’s field a foot deep and deeper in spots, speed signs in wrong locations or stretching well past where work is being done, torn up ditches and easements, boulders being left lying around, machinery being parked wrong, and more.

“In the future, I’m going to recommend we start treating all these utility installs just like a developer. So it will be my recommendation to you if we have an application for a utility to come and do a major install like this, it will be what is your project worth — in this case it’s in the millions — 10 percent gets held back for the municipality with a letter of credit so we can go and fix this.

“And that will make them very much aware and they’ll have some skin in the game. Right now they have no skin in the game. These guys could walk away and we’re going to have to deal with it. Hopefully that email was stern enough and they understand we can put a stop to them, but at what point do we stop because you’re making a mess?” Brandt told council.

$328 million rural internet project

Valley Fiber is running the $328-million Manitoba Fibre Project with help from the Canada Infrastructure Bank and DIF Capital Partners. The construction phase to connect rural homes to high-speed internet was to create 400 jobs plus another 50 permanent jobs within Valley Fiber, according to the August 2021 announcement. The federal government’s infrastructure bank was loaning $164 million for the project that covers rural areas and towns from the Interlake, central Manitoba,Winnipeg River regions, and eastern Manitoba.

Valley Fiber senior vice president Conley Kehler was not happy to hear about the issues that came up with the RM of Taché.

“We work hard to do restoration and do it right, and we are getting better at it,” said Kehler.

He added that he reached out to the RM as soon as The Carillon asked for comment.

“Our goal is obviously to be a good neighbour. We have really worked with the front end of our production staff. So our team leads on our production have changed significantly in the last I want to say two to three months. And so we’re way better than we have been on the getting in front of restoration, talking to customers when they call in with complaints.

“And there are complaints, no doubt about it. And sometimes we don’t react fast enough. And when it actually gets to my desk, then I know we’re not reacting fast enough because I shouldn’t have to be hearing about it,” said Kehler.

Mayor Armand Poirier acknowledged the mess where Valley Fiber had right of access. But he had an issue with work through private land, including a farm that has ruts where seeds had been planted. The mayor believed there was a question of legality with the work on the field.

“Now, how are they treating that?” asked Poirier during the meeting.

“They’re answerable to someone at the end of the day. But when they go through a farmer’s cropland without notification or permission, and there’s some damage… who do they answer to?”

Brandt said the farmer told him Valley Fiber was willing to level the ruts, but that was not going to help his seeded field.

Mayor Poirier said Valley Fiber should be brought as a delegation before council, which the rest of council agreed with and directed staff to send the invite.

Growing pains

Without mentioning the farmer’s specific experience, Kehler said sometimes not everyone knows how far right of way goes into land from the road, citing personal experience when he was surprised how far a utility went into what he thought was his yard. Kehler again emphasized that restoration would come as quick as possible.

Such a huge project to bring a quality of internet that Kehler believes could drive economic development has come with growing pains.

Kehler admitted this, pointing out that the company started after three guys mortgaged their homes to build infrastructure starting in the Pembina Valley.

“Once we made the announcement about Winkler, I think that dream lasted about an hour because after that we had calls from throughout the province, let’s put it that way, because rural Manitoba is so under-serviced,” said Kehler.

Then he said they came up with a $50-million project idea that the federal government said needed to be bigger, hence the $328-million expansion.

Employee numbers went from 15 to 380, contractors from two to 15.

Spending on the project that will also bring TV and voice service with the broadband to rural Manitoba includes $10 million in Taché, $17 million in Hanover, and $3-4 million in the RM of Ste Anne, according to Kehler.

“All at no cost to the RM except that yes, there is construction woes that do happen,” said Kehler.

Coun. Natashia Lapeire suggested residents make all complaints about those woes known to the company. She said she posted to social media the issues she saw after driving around Ward 6.

“And Valley Fiber quickly said take that down immediately because we’re getting slammed with calls. Well one of the things that came out of that is what I’m saying to all the residents is now, if you had damage in those areas and you noticed these things, call their customer service. Flood that customer service line. If that means husband, wife, child, call them and flood that line,” insisted Lapeire.

Her experience was before Kehler got the news about what was going on.

“Then it’s documented with Valley Fiber and they can’t turn around and say, well we haven’t heard anything; everything was great, Taché was perfect,” pointed out Lapeire.