City, company CEO blame one another for ozone system problem
The president of a firm being sued by Vaudreuil-Dorion defended the ozone system installed at the municipal water filtration plant, passing the blame onto city operators.
The dispute stems from a $1.1- million contract awarded in 2009 to St-Laurent-based Mabarex Inc. to supply Vaudreuil-Dorion with an ozone system that was mainly intended to improve taste and smell of potable water, though there are also purification benefits.
Vaudreuil-Dorion director general Martin Houde said the city’s lawsuit is due to Mabarex not delivering a system that functions as required, adding it has never worked properly.
“We’ve never been satisfied with the functionality of the equipment,” he said. “It never functioned up to the standards expected for this type of equipment.”
The city’s lawsuit, which names Mabarex, its partner as well as two insurance companies as defendants, is seeking about $1.6 million in damages and demands the firms remove the ozone equipment installed at the water treatment plant, or the city threatens to do this work on its own and send them a $127,000 bill.
The city claims the ozone system is unreliable, it doesn’t function continuously as required, and there were problems with generators. Despite attempts made by Mabarex to correct numerous technical problems between 2010 and 2015, deficiencies in the system remained and the company didn’t meet contractual requirements, the city states in its lawsuit filed in August.
Louis Barré, president of Mabarex, acknowledged there were glitches with Vaudreuil-Dorion’s ozone system. However, he claims the main problem was inept city staff who were overwhelmed by the project.
Barré said his firm set up a similar system in Île-Perrot several years ago that is functioning well, with a few adjustments made under the supervision of its engineers.
“It went smooth because the (Île-Perrot) plant knew what they were doing and they interacted to make things work,” he said. “In Vaudreuil, (due to some personnel changes) the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing and we were left holding the bag.
“If you want to understand how stupid they are, the last condition to get the final payment was to retrain all of the operators,” he continued. “I would say out of a 100 hours of (required) training, we did, like, 95 hours, but they keep dragging and dragging (to finish) because that’s when they would need to take charge of the system. The system works, but they just don’t want to operate it.”
As for the Île-Perrot comparison, Houde stated that filtration plant is much smaller than the one Vaudreuil-Dorion operates.
“It’s not the same size of equipment or capacity,” he said.
Barré charges VaudreuilDorion’s lawsuit aims to mask the city’s incompetence, adding none of its claims are substantiated by engineering reports. While he acknowledged his firm is also facing an ongoing lawsuit filed by the city of Joliette, he said it’s not a similar situation.
“In Joliette, it’s a different type of equipment, but from the same supplier,” he said. “We would like to settle out of court with Joliette. We’re a $100,000 apart. It’s a minor thing. They kept most of the system in operation and replaced part of it. There was a serious problem caused by a component that was never installed in Vaudreuil.”