SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The Deh Cho bridge saga took another turn on Friday when the territorial government announced it's running $15 million over budget, and Transportation Minister Michael McLeod said it would cost more than $100 million to back out of the project.

Deciding not to finish the bridge - which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns since former Premier Joe Handley approved it in 2007 - would be almost as expensive as finishing the job, now 50 per cent complete.

"We'd have to pay out the lenders, we'd have to probably remove the infrastructure we did create, we'd have to use the temporary bridges put back in to do that. It'd be quite significant ... it would be in excess of $100 million," McLeod told reporters Friday. "My intention is to finish the bridge."

The new cost overrun brings the price of the project to $182 million,10 per cent more expensive than expected. The half-built structure will eventually span one-kilometre over the Mackenzie River near Fort Providence - a permanent link to replace the seasonal ferry service and ice road.

McLeod said the additional money is needed to cover the cost of a new design, which has yet to be finalized. He will be asking for the legislative assembly's approval to cover the cost overrun.

McLeod said he still expects the design and new contractor to be finalized by March 1 and for the project to remain on track for completion in November 2011.

In the legislative assembly on Friday, MLAs responded with frustration saying they were being backed into a corner and given little option but to approve the additional money.

"There has been a collective, sickening feeling as we have contemplated our options," said Hay River South MLA Jane Groenewegen.

Calling it a "complete and utter disaster of a project," Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay estimated the new design, contractor, legal costs and termination costs with the former project team could total more than $200 million.

"I don't understand how the government or the minister could say with any certainly that $182 million is going to be the final price tag," he said.

McLeod couldn't say $15 million would be the only additional money required.

"There's always unexpected challenges that come up. Right now we expect $15 million will cover all the claims," he said.

Ramsay said he was concerned because the $15 million would exceed the 2010-2011 supplementary budget before the year even begins.

"We've got so many uncertainties out there. You could run into a bad forest fire season or a disaster," he said. "This whole project has the ability to cripple the government's finances."

But Ramsay said he didn't see an alternative to approving the added costs.

"We are stuck. It's not something we can walk away from," he said.

Groenewegen expressed concern that the GNWT is on the hook for the full amount of the loan if the lenders pull out.

"The lender is understandably getting nervous," she said. "The lender is in the drivers seat, and has the ability to call the loan ... because of the changes to the design, the management, the cost. These are all substantive changes," she said.

Given the project's uncertainty, she said this could also wreak havoc on future government's financial ability to execute projects.

However, Groenewegen said the other options aren't feasible either because the GNWT isn't in a position to operate it as a government project.

"The government would either be over the debt limit, or, essentially bankrupt," she said.

"Who wanted the Deh Cho bridge?" she asked. "No one I know."

As the project tentatively moves forward, the GNWT has also taken over the duties of project management, replacing the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation's former project management team of Andrew Gamble and Jivok Engineering.

"We felt we needed to bring in a new team to provide project management on this job," said McLeod.

McLeod said he wouldn't specify which individuals would be involved but confirmed the new management team would be a combination of people from the Department of Transportation and a private company.

"The reporting will come directly to us," he said. "It's a change, certainly."

McLeod said negotiations with the Deh Cho bridge corporation are ongoing, as they are with lenders.

The Deh Cho Bridge Corporation removed the previous contractor, ATCON Construction, a New Brunswick-based company, from the project Dec. 30, 2009 because it couldn't complete the work for $165 million, the price agreed to when the GNWT hired them in 2007.

Chief Joachim Bonnetrouge of the Deh Gah Got'ie First Nation in Fort Providence said he accepted the additional $15 million as the cost of doing business. The increase in the budget comes with the territory of getting involved in a mega-project, he said.

"The band and the community still looks forward to the completion of the Deh Cho Bridge," Bonnetrouge added.

- with files from Roxanna Thompson