By Craig Pearson, The Windsor Star
?It?s wasteful. It?s totally wasteful,? said Michael Miller, lawyer for the Buttcon Group which designed and built the energy centre that has become a lightning rod for criticism. ?One of the five generators is diesel, made for backup. That?s the one that has been operating. The four natural-gas ones have never been turned on.?
Miller said the OLG never gave approval as it should have, while the OLG suggests too many problems existed.
The OLG also says the energy centre was supposed to cost $40 million. Built into the parking garage of Caesars Windsor, the powerhouse provides heating, cooling and backup power to the expanded gaming facility.
?There?s much more to the story than what has been revealed so far and I think it will come out over time,? Conservative MPP Peter Shurman said Wednesday. ?But this is far more than what (Finance Minister) Dwight Duncan wants to make it out to be. It?s not just a commercial dispute.?
Shurman wants to know how the OLG started construction on the $439-million Caesars Windsor expansion without having enough power to run it, why the powerhouse was created ?off book? from casino expenses and why it ran over budget.
?What?s wrong with it?? Shurman asked. ?The OLG signed off on the project at every stage of its building. Why hasn?t the thing been commissioned as a power generator??
After being ousted as the company which runs the Windsor Energy Centre, the Buttcon Group filed a $355-million lawsuit against the OLG, claiming it had a contract to own and operate the facility for at least 18 years.
On Nov. 19, the OLG filed a $60-million counterclaim, suggesting Buttcon does not have appropriate experience designing, building or operating power plants.
The generators have never been hooked up to the power grid as planned and the counterclaim alleges massive mismanagement of the facility.
For example, the OLG?s suit alleges that equipment wasn?t maintained properly. One chiller stopped working and another was overheating: ?Rather than fixing the problem Buttcon was using a garden hose to run cold water over the chiller to keep it cool.?
A spokesperson for Windsor MPP Duncan ? who only took over the OLG file five months ago, after the problems had been created ? referred questions to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.
OLG spokesman Rui Brum would not comment on the energy facility, but said that Caesars Windsor will remain open.
Numbers released Wednesday for the second quarter of the current fiscal year show Caesars Windsor generated $71 million. In 2008-09, it generated $306 million, while in 2007-2008, $285 million ? significant, though still down from its heyday in 1999-00 of almost $840 million.
?This facility has provided millions of dollars to the treasury of Ontario,? said Brum. ?Caesars Windsor continues to make money and continues to be an important source of incomes for the people of Windsor.?