Many shortcomings cited in $3.5 million report

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This article was published 19/11/2019 (2162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Manitoba Infrastructure paid an engineering firm $3.5-million to craft an environmental assessment that was sent to a federal regulator, which found numerous shortcomings in the resulting report.

In a tendering reward posted late last week, the province disclosed paying $3.46 million to the engineering firm Stantec on April 15 “to finalize the environmental assessment process for the Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin outlet channel project.”

The job included completing the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to a federal regulator which is now called the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada.

The contract also called for analyzing data for “an ongoing wildlife trail camera study” and helping the department co-ordinate open houses.

Manitoba submitted the 2,300-page EIS on Aug. 31. The regulator responded on Oct. 22 with a 27-page list of problems it found in the report, ranging from an inaccurate table of contents to omitted technical reports and vague details on consultations and water-management plans.

The regulator did not allege any technical malfeasance. And while Manitoba Infrastructure has chalked the issues up to “technical clarification” and not errors, the regulator had suggested Manitoba “ensure references to figures are accurate.”

It’s unclear whether the department provided Stantec with insufficient information, or if the company’s work fell short of what the province’s expectations — Manitoba Infrastructure asked the firm not to answer the Free Press’ questions.

The department said Stantec’s contract includes helping respond to questions in the regulator’s conformity review, including revising the document as needed.

“While we continue to respond to the federal government’s increasing questions, these requests for additional information do not indicate that there are errors in the EIS, but help the Impact Assessment Agency to understand the project and how government has addressed the guidelines,” a government spokesman wrote.

Premier Brian Pallister has urged Ottawa to expedite the billion-dollar project, which aims to avoid a repeat of the devastating 2011 floods.

The province published its tender on March 1 and awarded the contract on April 15, at which point the report was “in draft form.”

That means Stantec started its work after Ottawa had already added communities onto Manitoba’s mandatory consultation list, an order the province seems to have ignored, according to multiple regulatory filings.

Pallister has chafed against Ottawa’s demands for consultations with downstream communities, arguing the province uses a “gold-standard” in addressing Indigenous concerns.

The Merx online registry shows 32 firms expressed an interest in the project, such as SNC-Lavalin and Aecom engineering.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Interlake flood-channel outlets environmental-impact contract