The City of Stratford is taking over operation of its Water Pollution Control Plant from the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA), concluding the move would save money over the long term while giving the municipality greater control over one of its most important infrastructure assets.
City council voted to begin a transition to in-house services at its regular meeting on June 22, following a report from Municipal VU Consulting Inc. (MVU). The recommendation comes as Stratford’s 10-year operating contract with OCWA is set to expire at the end of 2027. The city must notify the provincial agency by the end of 2026 if it intends to renew the agreement.
The Stratford WPCP is a Class 4 conventional activated sludge treatment facility.
MVU’s report recommends an 18-month transition program to begin later this year. The report says recruiting senior wastewater leadership, implementing a wastewater quality management system, integrating the city’s CMMS and SCADA systems, and working cooperatively with OCWA on the transition will be critical to a successful handover.
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The review estimates the in-house model would cost $24.8 million over the 2026-2035 period, roughly $2.1 million less than renewing the current operating arrangement on similar terms and $3.4 million less than negotiating a more comprehensive OCWA contract with additional performance and accountability measures. According to the report, the in-house option remained the lowest-cost scenario under all 11 sensitivity tests, including higher-than-expected staffing costs, transition overruns and OCWA renewal increases of up to 30%
Beyond the financial analysis, the report argues Stratford should directly operate the plant because it already owns the facility, holds the Environmental Compliance Approval and is ultimately responsible for regulatory compliance regardless of who runs the day-to-day operations. It says the current contract lacks performance key performance indicators, energy targets, benchmarking and reporting on preventive versus reactive maintenance, limiting the city’s visibility into operations.
The report also cites findings from the Ontario Auditor General’s 2021 value-for-money audit of OCWA, which found the agency generally staffed facilities based on historical proposals rather than workload data and that many assets in its management system lacked installation dates or cost information.
The review acknowledges OCWA has maintained a strong compliance record at the Stratford facility, with all Environmental Compliance Approval limits met between 2022 and 2024 and no outstanding compliance orders. However, it says the current contract has evolved into a more complex arrangement through several change orders and does not provide the level of transparency and accountability the city now expects.
Stratford could add seven full-time positions to operate the plant, including a wastewater treatment supervisor, lead hand, two operators, an electrician, a mechanic or millwright and a project engineer. The report identifies recruiting qualified operators in Ontario’s competitive labour market as the largest implementation risk and recommends approving a $1.25-million transition budget, including contingency funding.
The consultants note that Stratford would not be alone in operating its own wastewater treatment plant, pointing to municipalities such as Orillia, St. Thomas, Owen Sound, Barrie and Peterborough, which all manage comparable facilities in-house. Peterborough’s recent transition from an external operating model is highlighted as a recent example of a successful municipal takeover.
