Galloping, ice, foundations, and warranties

The Latest on Muskrat Falls

For four and a half years, the Liberty Consulting Group has reported to the Public Utilities Board about Muskrat Falls.

Opposition politicians and news media seldom mention any of these reports largely because neither the provincial government nor NALCOR-Hydro has any interest in them. Government sets the agenda. The others follow it.

This month marks the 13th anniversary of a secret meeting at The Rooms. Danny Williams, Kathy Dunderdale, and a gaggle of senior bureaucrats and other officials green-lit the damn thing without any idea whether it would work or how they would pay for it.

Thirteen eyars later the thing is still not done and the successors to those politicians and bureaucrats still have no idea how to pay for the ever-growing costs of the project.

The cost is now three times what those people signed off on.

Triple.

And we have not added in the costs of Holyrood 2, a new thermal generator made necessary because the transmission lines from Labrador do not work reliably.

The February report by Liberty makes for interesting reading, both because of that background and because NALCOR-Hydro is doing another round of testing as we speak in the hopes they’ll finally get the thing working.

Good luck with that because getting the lines to carry the full load they’re supposed to manage is only one of several problems still plaguing Danny Williams’ vanity project.