Debate, Drammen | People who are financially hard pressed may have their fees doubled

14 February 2023 adopted the previous municipal council to build a new regional treatment plant inside Nordbykollen, as a mountain plant. This will be a splice between Drammen, Asker and Lier municipalities according to given percentages, as it is so nicely called. Which means that Drammen municipality must pay 62 per cent of the investment.

The city bridge in Drammen was approved built for approx. NOK 780 million. Before construction started in 2022, the cost gap was a staggering 620 million. That is, a total of NOK 1.4 billion. And the final bill is still not available…

Ultimately in the end, it is us Drammen who will pay the bill, then in the form of poorer service offerings in our municipality.

Most people remember Well, Oslo went on a financial spree regarding the new water supply. It was estimated to cost 12.5 billion in 2019. In 2021, the cost had increased by 5.2 billion. A total of 17.7 billion. The total price now in 2024 is estimated at over 30 billion…

This is how we could mentioned project after project…

The costs of the city bridge can’t we do anything about it now. It must be paid by us anyway. But – now a new treatment plant in Nordbykollen is on the agenda.

Absolutely nothing suggests that we avoid the same scenario here. DNI will assert the claim that there is not a single construction company that can give a reasonable real fixed price for such a project. The tenders will be full of caveats and reservations.

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All previous experience indicates that the cost overruns will begin to run before the first salvo has even been fired in Nordbykollen. These costs must be paid over water and drainage fees according to the self-cost principle. Then we risk a doubling of these fees in our municipality, which all residents must help pay.

The alternative is to upgrade the treatment plants we have to today’s required standard. “Some” have suggested that this will be just as expensive, based on assumed calculations.

DNI Drammen, Det Norwegian Industrial Party in Drammen, will make the claim that upgrading today’s existing facilities provides much greater predictability in relation to costs, and the final bill will be significantly lower. It is, after all, easier to calculate costs for an upgrade/modernisation of an existing facility than to build a new one inside a mountain.

It should in In connection with a new location, new pipe routes and pumping systems are also being built. Today’s pipe routes to the existing facilities should also be considerably less expensive to upgrade. If you also look at preparedness, there is no doubt that Drammen is best served by several small treatment plants rather than one large one. If a small treatment plant is taken out of operation, this results in less pollution than if all the effluent from a large treatment plant has to be discharged into nature at the time when it is out of operation. It can quickly be called a natural disaster. Moreover, such a new facility will also have to frame vulnerable nature.

Many in Drammen actually live below the poverty line, and our claim will lead to disproportionately increased costs for our citizens, many of whom are already hard pressed financially.

So dear governing parties in Drammen municipality: DNI recommends that you reconsider this decision, and make sure not to impose unexpected costs on Drammen municipality’s residents for the future.

As it looked nice saying in politics: A decision is no longer valid until a new one is made. So it’s still not too late.

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