PAGE OCR 10 – March 2009 – The Ontario Construction Report
Ahead of schedule
and under budget:
Pomerleau’s
project surpasses
all expectations
MATTHEW DESROSIERS – The OCR Construction Report Special Feature
To call the Ravensview Water Pollu- leau’s Ravensview project director.
tion Control Plant (WPCP) project in “That’s the word I have from the owner
Kingston a staggering success is an under- and a lot of the people around. Everybody
statement. is satisfied.”
This project has exceeded expectations Pomerleau bid the job in June 2006,
across the board, in no small part due to was awarded the contract in July 2006,
the efforts of Pomerleau, a general con- and was on site early August.
tracting and construction management “It was a major upgrade of an existing
company based in Quebec with offices in sewage treatment plant,” said Fortin. “The
Ottawa (ON), Halifax (NS), Montreal project involved retrofits of all the exist-
(QC), Quebec (QC) and St-Georges (QC). ing processes and buildings, and the addi-
Allen Lucas, utilities engineer and tion of a secondary treatment process.”
project manager with Utilities Kingston, The contract called for Pomerleau to
the project owner, said not only is the upgrade the existing processes through
project significantly under the $116 mil- the modification and replacement of old
lion budget allocated by city council, but equipment, and the construction of six
it’s also several months ahead of sched- new buildings. Included are, most notably,
ule. a new co-generation facility and a biolog-
Although the contract with Pomerleau ical aerated filter facility (the new second-
states it must be completed by December ary treatment process).
2009, estimates are that all work should The project also involved completely
be done by June. Even with the project new site services such as a water main,
under budget and ahead of schedule, storm, and sanitary facilities.
Lucas said Pomerleau hasn’t cut any cor- “It’s like they have a brand new facil-
ners. ity.”
“The budget is one thing, but the qual- Despite the success of the project, it
ity of work that we’ve got out there is very wasn’t easy. Pomerleau had to work hard
high,” he said. “Pomerleau has really ex- to meet various challenges that arose dur-
celled, showing us that you can do a good ing construction.
job and you don’t have to be overpriced “One of the key challenges here was to
to do it.” perform all of this (work) while the exist-
Pomerleau’s contract for the project ing plant was running,” said Fortin. “We
was approximately $80 million. Addi- had to maintain the treatment at all times.”
tional project costs include engineering In order to maintain the primary treat-
fees, equipment fees, etc. ment of water, Pomerleau had to schedule
“We are significantly below budget, various small shutdowns and bypasses
ahead of the schedule, have very good while they worked on different areas of
quality work, and (have maintained) good the plant, whether they were doing modi-
relations,” said Normand Fortin, Pomer- fications or adding something new. A lot
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