Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - June 2003
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Sea Kings mutate into a Low Bid Ethos

A comedy/drama coming to a budget near you

by Tom Davey, Editor


The Sea King helicopter fiasco should become the benchmark to measure the true financial and other costs of the Low Bid Ethos (LBE) in environmental procurement decisions. LBE describes any procurement process in which engineering or scientific design proposals are rated on lowest price tenders, rather than quality, experience or reputation when proposed environmental treatment plants are being tendered. I once asked a purchaser: “If you were contemplating a vasectomy, would you shop around for a low price surgeon, or would you seek professional expertise and reputation?” Wincing at my hypothesis, he retreated behind his high school Shakespeare, saying: “This could be the unkindest cut of all,” but he conceded that the answer was painfully obvious.

In 1993, Prime Minister Chrétien quickly scrapped a contract signed by the previous Conservative government to buy EM-101 military helicopters from Agusta-Westland. “Canada does not need Cadillac aircraft,” he said. To rescind the original contract cost Canadians some $500 million not to have helicopters. To these substantial costs must be added the growing and immense costs of maintaining 40 year old aircraft which are often older than the crews that fly them. The bravery of our air crews - and the ingenuity of maintenance engineers to keep them flying - are redolent of Junk Yard Wars, rather than military operations. Ten crew members have been killed in crashes of Sea Kings which were designed to seek out and destroy submarines as well as search and rescue operations.

By their very nature, helicopters are complex, intricate machines which have to take off on a variety of operations, including the heaving decks of ships in heavy seas, to seek-and-rescue shipwrecked crews in atrocious weather conditions. As anyone with an older car knows, repair costs escalate exponentially as optimum mechanical life-span dates are passed.

It has been estimated that it now could take 30 hours of maintenance on Sea Kings for every operational hour in the air. While this sounds like an exaggeration, it is one I have not seen challenged. In a car, this would mean that a five hour drive from Ottawa to Toronto could require 150 hours of maintenance - a total of 300 hours for a return trip. Were the high maintenance costs of aging, complex machines like military helicopters ever factored into the already costly $500 million cancellation of the original contract? Remember, they were required for search and destroy missions - not to be destroyed while searching.

The most recent evidence of this farcical situation was when the Canadian destroyer, HMCS Iroquois set out for the Persian Gulf. Its Sea King took off, faltered, then crashed back, damaging the helicopter, the destroyer and Canada’s international reputation. It reportedly cost about $150,000 to ship another Sea King to the Iroquois in order to complete its mission. Earlier, in 1999, a Sea King had to sit out NATO exercises because of mechanical failures. These aging helicopters have a litany of embarrassing breakdowns. Our air crews are not Kamikaze pilots. They should be decorated for repeatedly performing dangerous rescue missions in such antique aircraft. Modern helicopters are necessities, not luxuries. Besides our military commitments, we have the longest coastlines in the world where shipwrecks requiring rescue in atrocious conditions and turbulent seas are commonplace.

Now the Federal government is belatedly reviewing its process of buying a new fleet of helicopters, and new situations are now being debated. Should the government buy threeengined EM-101 helicopters from Agusta-Westland, with their complex electronic equipment already in place - or does it adopt a split procurement approach whereby the electronics and other hi-tech equipment are installed by another company? The original helicopter selection has three engines and is therefore better able to cope if an engine fails. It is also able to operate in the Arctic and has de-icing capabilities on its rotor blades.

Defence Minister John McCallum said, after consultations, he came to the conclusion: “It’s more efficient to proceed with a single contract rather than two...because with a single contract there’s less risk and therefore likely to be a lower cost.” It appeared that, at last, a sensible procurement approach was emerging from Disneyland on the Rideau. Then déjà vu loomed like Marley’s Ghost, haunting Scrooge. As part of the initial procurement process discussions, Ottawa talked of awarding the contract on the basis of lowest-cost compliance. As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons, after they regained the French Throne following the revolution: “They have learned nothing!”

As ES&E has frequently noted, the Low Bid Ethos has been extremely costly both in environmental deterioration and massive waste of money in governments of all levels, municipal, regional, provincial and federal. Welldesigned environmental projects usually last for decades while effectively protecting public health, the environment and the public purse. The Walkerton drinking tragedy has already topped $64 million - and still counting - on Environmental Inquiry Commissions, legal fees, compensation and other costs, not to mention the pain and suffering of many residents and losses in real estate values. Moreover, the legal costs are far from over. For a fraction of this huge sum, there could have been hydrological inspections by consultants, upgraded disinfection equipment, laboratory analyses, systematic water mains inspection, swabbing and regular replacement programs and, finally, regular operator training courses.

Lowest Cost Compliance is a new term for me but it has the same sinister ring as the Low Bid Ethos. As the fabled Hollywood director, Otto Preminger once pleaded with his staff: “Don’t try to save me any more money - I can’t afford it.” Canada too, cannot afford a mindset based on price instead of quality.

This gives me an idea to recoup some of the losses incurred over the helicopter contract fiasco. We could make a serious documentary film of the Sea King epic, beginning with the PM’s proud announcement: “We don’t need Cadillacs.” The documentary could depict the contract signing and subsequent cancellation, followed by actual and protracted replacement costs of the Sea Kings. However, there are so many absurdities involved, it may have to be filmed as a series. The movie could be dramatically interwoven with actual film clips of our crews braving mountainous seas to pluck people from sinking ships in helicopters, with voice-overs, smugly talking about cutting costs. This would be a drama needing no special effects.

Existing TV archives already have some gripping footage of helicopter rescues from shipwrecks which match the finest of Hollywood fiction in action and drama. This film could either be an eloquent conclusion to the procurement debate, or a comedy like the Monty Python films. Perhaps both. Moreover, like the original split-procurement discussions, it could even be a dual purpose film, serving as both comedy and tragedy, giving taxpayers the illusion of getting two benefits for the price of one, a fiscal illusion to be sure, yet one which might be pleasing to procurement accountants.

Actors could capture the self-satisfied smirks in Parliament when the original “money-saving” contract cancellation was announced, followed by the looks of consternation as the tragedy unfolded over a decade like a reoccurring decimal. Ample supplies of red ink will be needed by set designers during shooting - the Feds probably are already getting high volume discounts on the stuff.

Much more foolish is infrastructure neglect, which, unlike crashing helicopters, is out of sight and therefore out of public scrutiny. If our neglected water and wastewater infrastructure had a fraction of the same exposure and media coverage as the Sea Kings fiasco, public outrage would resonate across Canada.

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