An MD of Bighorn councillor wants the municipality to publically disclose details of a million-dollar invoice Lafarge submitted to the province for rock provided to the MD during the June 2013 flood.
Councillor Paul Ryan indicated March 11 that he intends to bring a motion forward during the April council meeting to direct administration to release to the public the justification and the calculations, along with the MD rationale submitted to the province.
“Refusing to disclose the details of what the MD is getting for the $1.65 million invoice is a departure from the transparency that the taxpayers have grown to expect and the principle that all expenditures of public money should be subject to public scrutiny,” Ryan wrote in his March 11 notice of motion.
Specifically, Ryan said he still wants the public to see the details justifying the price per tonne and the quantity of rock delivered during the flood to critical points along Exshaw Creek.
“During the flood event of 2013 Lafarge provided services as requested by the Director of Disaster Services and allowed for under the Local State of Emergency that was in force during that time. There is no doubt that the rock and equipment provided by Lafarge was critical in protecting the town during that event. There is also no doubt that Lafarge should be entitled for fair compensation for its services,” Ryan wrote.
After receiving the invoice, the MD submitted it to the province for payment. The province, however, returned the invoice so the MD could verify the quantity of rock Lafarge had delivered.
“A rough survey of the rock piles was conducted and is grossly inconsistent with the amounts of rock identified in the invoice,” Ryan wrote. “The Rip Rap Rock provided by Lafarge to the MD appears to be 80 per cent more expensive ($30 per tonne from Downer versus $55 per tonne from Lafarge) than Rip Rap Rock provided to the MD by another supplier during the same time frame. A difference of $749,600.”
Bighorn Reeve Dene Cooper and Chief Administrative Officer Martin Buckley, however, were not certain releasing the details was feasible or appropriate.
Buckley stated that releasing the invoice and its accompanying details could harm Lafarge’s competitveness and as a result is likely subject to section 16 of the Freedom of Information and Privacy (FOIP).
Cooper said the invoice is still a contractual matter.
“That is an ongoing investigation research process that involves the government of Alberta,” Cooper said. “It might not be in the interest of the public or council to interfere at this stage. The appropriate time to make the details public might not be now.”
However, Lafarge chose recently to make its rationale public, sending a copy of the letter to the Outlook on Monday (March 18).
“We are happy to share the information on how we came to those totals,” said Lafarge representative Michelle Guerney. “I don’t know other invoices are under the same scrutiny, but if this is about the province doing its due diligence, we absolutely support that.”
In its rationale, Lafarge stated it had to estimate its volumes, as the Exshaw plant does not have a weigh scale that could weigh the loads carried by the quarry haul trucks.
“In an ideal situation, all rock provided would have been weighed on a truck scale,” said Lafarge Operations Manager Ben Parayankuzhiyil. “Due to the fact that this plant does not normally sell or ship in this manner, the site is not equipped with a scale capable of weighing these trucks. For this reason, the above noted method of calculation was used and our team stands by its validity. Unfortunately, the MD is unable to verify the number of truck deliveries due to technical issues with recording of the radio conversations.”
The company provided four trucks, three CAT 775 haul trucks and one ejector truck with a 31-tonne haul capacity, that delivered rock to four locations in the Exshaw region – the Highway 1A bridge, the firehall, Mount Kidd Crescent and Mount Lorette Drive – over a 100-hour period.
Each time, the three CAT 775 trucks delivered approximately 70 tonnes, about 84 per cent of a maximum load, while the ejector truck operated for 16 hours delivering 31 tonnes or rock four times an hour.
“This is a conservative estimate by industry standards, but fairly estimates loading at the Lafarge Exshaw plant,” wrote Parayankuzhiyil.
In total, Lafarge has provided a conservative estimate of 29,984 tonnes of rock, Guerney said.
In regards to the difference in price – $30 per tonne from Downer and $55 per tonne from Lafarge – she added Lafarge had no rip rap or waste rock on hand during the flood. The company, instead, had to provide limestone rock that would normally be used to make cement.
“(Process rock) is far more valuable to us than the price that we charged. The price that we came up with a tonne is what we considered a blended rate at a range of sizes.”
The rock was also larger in size than most rip rap, she said.
“It’s likely much bigger than you could typically purchase. The chemistry of the rock was different and the sizing of the rock was different. It’s simply not an apples-to-apples comparison and I understand that people are looking to simplify this so they can make sense of it, but in our industry, a rock is not just a rock,” said Guerney, adding under normal circumstances Lafarge would never sell its process rock.
“It has a much higher value when it goes into our process or product.”
