In the Capital Regional District, we could be on the way to a world record in procrastination in the guise of democratic debate. While other cities and districts appear able to assess and resolve problems with vigour and common sense, we dwellers on the southern slopes of Vancouver Island stumble about reciting a need for “further discussion” before deciding anything.
For example: The Capital Regional District was born in 1966 with a multitude of problems waiting to be resolved, two of serious concern. Number 1 on the agenda was the need for a new general hospital to replace aging downtown St. Joseph’s; number 2 was to develop a regional sewage collection and disposal system.
Longtime readers with good memories may recall the ferocity of the hospital debate, with a group of doctors lobbying for a new hospital to be located on the site of the existing St. Jo’s. A stronger lobby insisted any new facility be built away from “the city,” which was already well serviced by Royal Jubilee.
The debate raged — and “raged” is the correct word — for several years ending only after a high-priced consulting firm from Toronto was hired to weigh the pros and cons and make suggestions. It recommended the new hospital be built to accommodate population growth in the western sector. In the early 1980s, talk ended and construction began on Victoria General near Helmcken Road. It was never questioned a new hospital was needed, but it took several years to decide where.
The few years debating hospital location turned out to be speedy when compared to the debate on sewage disposal. It started in 1966, with an engineering report pinpointing dozens of small outfalls dumping contaminated effluent in streams and on beaches. It resulted in the building of major trunk lines to funnel sewage to Clover and Macaulay points, where major outfalls extended kilometres out to sea. Scientists and engineers assured the CRD tidal currents would provide ultimate disposal treatment. The CRD thought the decision to go ahead backed by such strong scientific and technical support would end debate. It didn’t.
Before the new system came on line, it was being condemned because it discharged raw sewage into the ocean and let nature perform ultimate disposal treatment. Many health officials, environmentalists and marine scientists still feel strongly that sewage treatment as ordered by federal and provincial authorities is arbitrary, wrong and a ridiculous waste of money.
With federal and provincial heavyweights ordering treatment before disposal, many considered the debate over. It was instead merely taking a breather before moving to Phase 2 — where to build the treatment plant and the accompanying incinerator required to make it state of the art. The order to go to full onshore treatment was easily made and given, but the NIMBY syndrome came quickly to the fore. The most ardent environmentalists want treatment with incineration — as long as the treatment plant and sludge-burning incinerator are far distant from their neighbourhood.
I do not pretend to be an expert in what we now call wastewater disposal (because sewage is an unpleasant word and the “sludge” it creates in its final stages even more so). But I do, as always, have a question or two.
The city of New York is home to 14 wastewater (read sewage) plants. Together they treat 4.9 billion litres of waste a day. The city’s publicity department tells us “this amazing [system of] treatment that cleans our wastewater consists of 6,000 miles of sewer pipes; 135,000 sewer catch basins over 495 permitted outfalls for the combined sewer overflows, and 95 pumping stations to move everything to the 14 treatment plants” for conversion to “sludge.” The final product, water- and odour-free and “waferlike,” is then returned to the land as fertilizer.
The New York city wastewater-disposal system is massively larger than ours, and so is the disposal problem. But consider: Since 1986, when the U.S. federal government banned ocean disposal of sewage generated biosolids, New York has built 33 sewage sludge and waste incinerators to feed 14 plants. (There are 170 incinerators in all in the U.S., with “a significant number” on the West Coast.) They all use the end product as fertilizer — a procedure rejected in the CRD, where one multimillion-dollar incinerator is now deemed essential, but with site and final disposal of the end product yet to be decided.
“Further discussion” is needed to give the lie to the old saying “talk is cheap.” Just wait until we get the bill.