The City of Regina has announced the three consortiums bidding for the contract for the city’s new public-private partnership wastewater treatment plant. They are EPCOR Saskatchewan Water Partners, Prairie Water Partners, and Wascana Environmental Partners. The three contenders within these consortiums who would lead the operations of the wastewater plant are: EPCOR Water Services Inc., CH2M Hill Canada Ltd., and United Water Environmental Services Canada LP.
Briefly, EPCOR has the City of Edmonton as its sole shareholder. It provides water, wastewater and distribution services to more than 1 million people in 75 Canadian communities. It also operates in the United States. Colorado-based CH2ML Hill runs sewerage programs in London (England) and Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) and sells other services in numerous countries. And United Water is a subsidiary of Paris-based Suez Environnement, whose other subsidiaries and holdings include Aguas de Barcelona (in Spain), Bal-Ondeo (in Mexico), and Anderson Water Systems (in Canada).
I look forward to seeing the research that will tell us more about these corporations.
Interestingly, Regina Mayor Michael Fougere who pushed for the P3 for the city’s wastewater plant recently stated at a Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships conference that the city would never consider a P3 for their water supply.
