| Posted by Winnipeg Chapter on May 7, 2010 at 3:51 PM |
The Winnipeg Free Press reports this afternoon that, “The City of Winnipeg has chosen Veolia Canada over two other engineering firms to help conduct $661million worth of upgrades to the city’s sewage-treatment plants.”
“The city is poised to enter into a 30-year deal with the Canadian wing of Veolia, a multi-national consulting firm based in France. The deal will see five to 15 Veolia staffers help design upgrades at the sewage treatment plants and assist the city’s maintenance efforts. The private firm will not own any facilities and unionized city staff will continue to operate them, said Bryan Gray, one of the creators of the city’s new utility.”
Veolia Water (formerly Vivendi Water, originally Generale des Eaux), is the water division of the French corporate giant Veolia Environnement, the world’s largest supplier of water services operating in about 64 metropolitan areas.
As we reported in a campaign blog yesterday, the article notes that, “The city has abandoned a plan to allow a private firm to own part of a subsidiary in the new utility. Instead, the deal with Veolia – which faces approval from executive policy committee and city council — will see the company assume responsibility for a percentage of any cost overruns and also some of the savings that may flow from more efficient plant operations.”
Still, we will be monitoring this situation very closely.
click here for the full Free Press article. (article no longer available)