La Broquerie joins wastewater co-op hours after open house

The council of La Broquerie voted 4-3 to join the Red-Seine-Rat Wastewater Co-operative (RSR) Wednesday morning, hours after a public open house.

The Tuesday night information session was posted Nov. 5 on the RM’s website. Ward 1 councillors Benno Friesen, Andy Loewen and Darrel Unger at Wednesday’s council meeting voted against joining the co-op and using the new regional wastewater treatment facility being built north of Niverville in the RM of Ritchot. Ward 2 councillors voted for it, with Reeve Ivan Normandeau breaking the tie in favour.

The deadline given by the current members of RSR’s co-op was already extended from Oct. 31 to give La Broquerie a last chance to join before tenders went out this year. Its lagoons are now over capacity.

Getting going on the facility and pipes connecting all the member lagoons is needed soon to hold onto the 1.4 percent financing from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank for the project. In spring, it was priced at $190 million but has since added Otterburne in the RM of De Salaberry. Other members include the municipalities of Hanover, Ritchot, Niverville and Tache. The pipes would also connect Mitchell, Blumenort, Kleefeld, New Bothwell, Landmark, Lorette, Ste. Agathe, St. Adolphe, and Ile des Chenes.

Several members of the public said they felt like their “backs were against the wall.”

“It is against the wall,” responded RSR community development and project consultant Gordon Daman.

When accused of being a salesperson for RSR, Daman vehemently denied it. He said adding La Broquerie makes the project more expensive, and that a La Broquerie that cannot add more homes or businesses benefits neighbouring communities that can.

The RM of La Broquerie is to be responsible for $15 million in costs for adding more capacity to the facility, with another $15 million coming from the RM in the form of fees for a total of $30 million. There is an opportunity to sell $20 million worth of extra capacity over 20 years to St Malo, Steinbach or others in the Southeast, with La Broquerie getting more than it needs because of how the treatment facility is built and expanded onto.

Tuesday night’s open house had about 40 in attendance, including all of council minus Coun. Unger.

The crowd was given the presentation on the current lagoon situation and La Broquerie’s three options by Daman.

Two engineering consultants from Stantec were there to help explain some of the details on the current and any future lagoons in the RM. Stantec is not working on the RSR treatment facility, which is designed by Jacobs Solutions.

Council was not seated at the front to take questions from the public Tuesday, with seven chairs sitting empty between Daman and the Stantec consultants. Some council members occasionally responded from their seats in the crowd.

Coun. Loewen took the opportunity to go to the microphone provided for public questions to tell everyone gathered that he was not pleased with the process, which earned a round of applause from the majority of those at the open house.

“This is the biggest decision that we as an RM have ever made here, and it’s something that we shouldn’t keep quiet from our ratepayers. And it should never have been put in camera (closed to the public at council meetings),” said Loewen.

“I feel like that just creates mistrust. We should be transparent. And that’s what hurts me, that we have people in council that are willing to try to pull something like this off in camera, and that’s wrong,” he added.

A $5-million loan was included in this spring’s La Broquerie budget in case the RM decided to join RSR.

“That $5 million was put there, and you’ll probably see that there for the next couple years until we move forward on a project for the lagoon,” Reeve Ivan Normandeau told The Carillon in March when explaining the improbability that any decision would be made this year.

The RM also passed an identical 4-3 vote in September authorizing administration to negotiate the required agreements to join the RSR.

“It might not be popular today but 30 years from now when they realize we don’t need that little lagoon and can’t do anything, they’ll realize that sometimes the best decision is not the [most popular] one that’s made right now, but 30 years from now they’ll realize, ‘oh, that was a good idea to join this thing even though it wasn’t a popular decision,’” said Normandeau in September.

The reeve did not respond by deadline Wednesday afternoon to a request for comment on joining the RSR. He left the open house shortly after the heated event came to a close.

Deputy Mayor Laurent Tetrault did stay behind to answer questions. He made it clear he would be supporting joining RSR at the next morning’s vote, citing big projects over his 50 years in municipal administration and politics as proof that big spending can be worth it. That includes every lagoon addition since 1975.

“Lately we’ve been building lagoons every seven years, and it’s time to move on and build something for 60 years,” said Tetrault.

He said the people upset at the open house Tuesday were not representative of his discussions with residents on joining RSR and working with their municipal neighbours in the region.

“Here we are tonight having people trying to destroy us as a council. I think we don’t always agree as a council but we’re building a beautiful community and we’ll keep on doing that,” said Tetrault.

Former reeve Louis Weiss joined in the admonishment of council and the RSR. He spoke of chemicals that Daman said are not used in the biological process in the lagoon.

Weiss, who was reeve from 2014 to the end of 2022, blamed the province for the building of a lagoon in 2017 that did not meet the RM’s needs very long.

“We projected our growth, the council did, and the province said we were overzealous, that would never happen. That and more happened. They’re morons,” Weiss told the crowd and consultants.

Option 1

The first option presented Tuesday was to stop issuing building permits in La Broquerie.

The lagoons being used are at capacity and cannot handle new developments, already risking sewer backups during heavy rain and melt events.

Daman is a former Niverville mayor. Before that he was deputy mayor and described a time about 25 years ago that the town flushed out sewage into ditches to avoid sewage backing up in all its homes and businesses, admitting that is quite illegal. He also pointed to Landmark going seven years without being allowed by the province to issue more building permits because its lagoon was full.

No new businesses or homes would be allowed if this option was chosen, a dilemma now being faced by St Malo.

Option 2

A new lagoon is another option. La Broquerie has built a new lagoon three times since 2006.

The province’s intent is to have any new wastewater treatment handle any new growth for the next 20 years, which means that threshold has not been met three times in just 18 years.

Stantec’s consultants said there is not enough room to expand more at the lagoons’ current location. Assuming 40 to 50 hectares of land with the right clay soil could be found so no artificial liner would have to be installed, the cost is estimated to be $26 million to $30 million. A synthetic liner would add another $8 million.

Daman said new lagoons from the start to end of the process takes from two to five years.

La Broquerie must build to higher tier one treatment requirements, with its population expected to grow past 10,000 residents within 20 years.

Option 3

Hooking up to the RSR membrane bioreactor is what a split council decided to go with Wednesday morning.

It also costs $30 million including piping and a lift station. It is expected to last 40-60 years and gives La Broquerie over four times the added lagoon capacity of a new $30-million lagoon.

Daman added that the goal of this NDP government and the previous PC government is to create three large regional wastewater systems in southern Manitoba, one each for the southeast, south central and southwest.

The final environmental proposal for RSR was handed in by Jacobs Solutions this June. Proposals from contractors are expected back by March. Construction would start in fall of 2025 and be completed between the fall of 2028 and spring 2029.

There will be a public hearing required for any borrowing proposed by the RM.