Independent findings on troubled North Shore sewage plant due in early 2027 | Daily Hive

Independent findings on troubled $3.9-billion North Shore sewage treatment plant due in early 2027

May 2026 construction progress on the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project in North Vancouver, as seen from Downtown Vancouver. (Darryl Brooks/Shutterstock)

On a clear day, the construction cranes towering over the beleaguered $3.86-billion North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project can be easily seen across Burrard Inlet from Coal Harbour in Downtown Vancouver.

Metro Vancouver Regional District’s promised independent review of the troubled North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant project has taken its next steps to move ahead, just weeks after the regional district reached a legal settlement with Acciona to bring years of litigation to a close. The former contractor provided the regional district with a $235-million payment.

Elected officials and taxpayers are looking for answers about how the project to build a new replacement sewage treatment plant serving West Vancouver, North Vancouver District, and North Vancouver City became one of the regional district’s most expensive capital projects ever, and what lessons can be learned to prevent similar challenges in the future.

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On Friday, it was announced that the regional district had finalized the appointment of an independent review team led by veteran infrastructure executive Rob Andrews of EXP Engineering.

The review is expected to culminate in a public report by the end of January 2027.

The review was first contemplated in 2024 as mounting concerns grew over the project’s ballooning costs, governance, and management. However, the effort was later put on hold while the regional district and Acciona pursued legal action against one another — after the regional district fired Acciona for abandoning the project and performing substandard work. With the litigation resolved outside of the court room in May 2026, the review process can proceed.

“Our team’s deep expertise in evaluating complex infrastructure projects makes us well equipped to conduct a thorough, balanced, and independent review of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant Project,” said Andrews.

“We look forward to sharing the results of a rigorous and impartial review, with recommendations for future projects.”

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January 2025 construction progress on the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

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Construction progress on North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, as of January 29, 2025. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The independent review team brings experience from several major infrastructure projects Canada and the United States, including some highly problematic projects.

Andrews, who will lead the review, has more than four decades of experience in water and wastewater infrastructure and previously served as president and CEO of the Ontario Clean Water Agency.

Joining him is Gary Webster, whose experience includes advisory roles on major projects such as Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion and California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project. Webster’s work will focus on governance, procurement, and financial oversight.

Ed Green will contribute expertise in project cost estimation, risk analysis, scheduling, and construction delivery. His past work includes the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project, the troubled project to build a new replacement George Massey Tunnel, and the Highway 1 improvement project in the Fraser Valley.

The fourth member of the team, Al Knight, specializes in infrastructure governance, project performance evaluation, and financial controls, with extensive experience in project estimating and oversight.

The review team has been tasked with examining some of the most contentious questions surrounding the project, including how the budget evolved since the project’s inception — growing from $700 million in 2018 when major construction work first began t0 the figure of $3.86 billion by March 2024. The project was originally set to reach completion in 2020, but that has now been pushed to 2030, with the regional district hiring PCL Constructors and AECOM more than two years ago to fix the deficiencies of the previous contractor and complete the facility.

As well, the review will look at what factors drove the substantial cost increases, and whether the regional district’s management decisions contributed to those overruns.

Reviewers will also assess whether the regional district’s governance structure, oversight mechanisms, and project controls were adequate for a project of this scale, and whether risks and cost increases could have been avoided.

In addition to examining the project’s history, the review will provide recommendations aimed at reducing cost and schedule risks for the remainder of construction and for future capital projects undertaken by the regional district.

To support its work, the review team will be granted full access to the regional district’s records related to the project’s finances, governance, delivery, and decision-making.

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Artistic rendering of the revised design of North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

Due to these cost overruns and lengthy delays, and the resulting impact on how much households and businesses pay in annual fees for sewerage services, the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant has become one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in the history of the Metro Vancouver region.

The issues surrounding the project have become a turning point for the regional district, prompting intense scrutiny of its operations, governance practices, procurement processes, and financial oversight by mayors and city councillors across the region.

The North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant is being constructed at an industrial waterfront area of North Vancouver District. It is intended to not only provide greater long-term capacity for the North Shore’s population and economic growth, but also fulfill the federally-mandated secondary treatment of waste water, which is a process that removes 93 per cent of the solids in the water after the primary treatment stage. The North Shore plant also goes one step further by also providing tertiary treatment, which removes 99 per cent of the solids, including harmful contaminants.

Upon completion, the existing 1961-built Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant below the north end of the Lions Gate Bridge — a facility that only provides primary treatment or very light treatment — will be decommissioned, with the land rehabilitated and transferred to the Squamish Nation. The new plant will reuse the existing facility’s outfall pipe into Burrard Inlet, with the conveyance connection from the new plant to the new conveyance pump station at the First Narrows already completed.

The controversy over this North Shore plant project also contributed to the regional district’s Fall 2025 decision to cut the budget of the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant by $4 billion, with the budget for that project near Vancouver International Airport falling from about $10 billion to about $6 billion. This was achieved by eliminating tertiary treatment — instead focusing on fulfilling the minimum federal requirement for secondary treatment — and repurposing and upgrading some of the existing facility’s components, which only provide primary treatment.

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