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A $21,100 charge will be added to Feng Lin Liu’s alleged debts if the West Side property owner fails to submit his empty homes tax declaration to the City of Vancouver.

Liu is the owner of 7084 Beechwood St., where engineers are one final test away from completing a $10.5-million project to cap a breached aquifer that gushed water for almost two years at a clip of up to two million litres a day. Geothermal drillers with Geoenergia Projects hired by Liu left the country after they breached the aquifer and the city stepped in to manage the cleanup.

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Last week, Geoenergia’s Armando and Tommaso Mascetti failed to appear in court to face several charges under the provincial Water Act related to the incident. Those charges include diverting more water than authorized and failure to control an artesian well.

Photo by Mike Bell / PNG

That was just the latest move in a series of errors that began in September 2015 when the aquifer was breached. Shortly after the accident, city staff estimated cleanup costs could rack up a $200,000 tab. By the time contractors capped the breach in July 2017, the bill was more than 50 times that figure.