The Saint John Common Council approved at its November 3 meeting the three shortlisted proponents for the Saint John's (New Brunswick, Canada) Safe Clean Drinking Water PPP project.

The three proponents were selected from a list of six respondents to the City's requests for qualifications (RFQ) issued in July this year. The three selected teams are the following:

• Port City Water Partners
• Port City Water Partnership
• Port City Water Solutions

The city has not unveiled the composition of the selected teams. The RFP is expected to be issued later this year.

Under the proposed PPP arrangement, project risks including design, construction, financing, operations and maintenance will be transferred to a private partner, who will bear responsibility for any cost overruns and delays.

On November 22, 2013, the Governments of Canada and New Brunswick and PPP Canada announced a combined investment of up to CAD$114.6 million to the City of Saint John Safe Clean Drinking Water project. The federal government announced it is providing an up to CAD$57.3 million non-repayable P3 Canada Fund contribution to the project while the Province of New Brunswick is providing an up to CAD$57.3 million contribution through the Regional Development Corporation.

The project involves the development of a new 100 million litre per day drinking water treatment plant, three new 11 million litre storage reservoirs and 15 other water transmission system improvements.

The city currently supplies surface water to its system users. Last year, the city began testing for groundwater on both the East and West sides in an effort to reduce project costs as ground water costs less to treat. Tests did not support an adequate supply on the East side however, tests received back last month from the West wellfield indicated that there is enough water to supply groundwater to the west side. That water can be treated at the Spruce Lake Treatment Plant.

This means capacity at the East side plant can be reduced to 75 MLD (million litres per day) and that there is no need for some of the distribution and storage upgrades needed to supply East side water to the West side.