The impasse over locating a sewage-treatment plant at Esquimalt’s McLoughlin Point could translate into “astounding” property tax increases for homeowners both inside and outside the township’s boundaries, say some local politicians.
So desperate is the Capital Regional District to both get on with its plans and preserve senior government funding that it has offered Esquimalt $19 million to locate a plant at McLoughlin — enough money to pay Esquimalt’s share of building a treatment plant and biosolids facility.
If the offer is accepted, it would reduce the total cost to individual Esquimalt property owners for sewage treatment to about $125 a year (the amount needed to cover the municipality’s share of operating costs for the entire system) from the estimated $311 a year each homeowner was forecast to pay.
But those figures are based on the regional project getting $501 million in federal and provincial grants.
If the proposed treatment plant has to be built without senior government money, the typical Esquimalt householder’s share would increase to $685 a year for sewage treatment, say CRD staff estimates.
It’s exactly that type of increase that’s worrying many CRD directors, who say Esquimalt’s refusal to rezone McLoughlin and its unhurried approach to revisiting the issue could translate into massive tax increases for property owners — inside and outside Esquimalt.
Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen said the urgency of the situation can’t be overstated.
“Just doing a straight-line calculation for Oak Bay, an average household in Oak Bay under the current plan would be about $450 per household.
“That’s not just during the time of construction, that’s from here on in,” Jensen said.
“That’s with a $500-million grant. If we were to lose that grant, the cost per household, again on a simple straight-line calculation, would go to $1,350. If we were to go on a distributed model [multiple plants] with no grant, we’re looking at $2,700,” he said.
“That is an astounding hit for any taxpayer,” Jensen said, adding that while the dollar numbers vary from municipality to municipality, the magnitude of the increase will be the same.
“We’re all worried,” said Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard about potential tax increases.
Esquimalt’s decision to deny the CRD’s application to rezone McLoughlin for a treatment plant came after an extensive public hearing that spanned four sessions and saw hundreds of residents speak against the proposal.
The CRD appealed to the province to intervene and overturn the decision, but Environment Minister Mary Polak refused and has maintained that the region must build sewage treatment while acknowledging that delays could jeopardize the $501 million in senior government funding.
As the CRD’s bid from a preferred proponent to build a plant at McLoughlin expires on July 26, the CRD has asked that Esquimalt respond to its latest offer by July 16.
While Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins said she will take the CRD’s offer back to council and residents, there is no way a July 16 deadline can be met given the council’s scheduled summer recess and the need for consultation.
Besides, she said, the refusal was not about the money. Offering a “bribe” at the eleventh hour is insulting to residents who oppose a treatment plant at McLoughlin for a variety of reasons, including tsunami risk, the proposed treatment model and global warming, she said.
“We have turned down the zoning based on the height and setbacks and what we heard from the public,” Desjardins said. “It was never about the money before, so now there’s money on the table and you’re asking me to go back, but it wasn’t about the money.”
Since the province’s decision not to intervene, Esquimalt has floated the possibility of having a tertiary treatment plant built for Esquimalt and View Royal as part of its village core revitalization project.
Leonard hopes Esquimalt residents let Desjardins know how they feel.
“I hope she gets some phone calls and emails from Esquimalt taxpayers who find saving at least $400 a year attractive. I guess if she can’t consider it until the fall, that reinforces the position some of us have taken with the provincial government that we really never had a fair shot in Esquimalt,” Leonard said.
Victoria Coun. Geoff Young, who chairs of the CRD’s liquid waste committee and attended all of Esquimalt’s public hearings, said Esquimalt residents might just find the prospect of having a free sewage-treatment plant at McLoughlin preferable to paying to build a tertiary treatment plant in the town centre.
Young said the situation has changed since the public hearing and there is now a lot of information that wasn’t available when the CRD sought the rezoning.
A lot of the concerns raised at the hearing have now been addressed, including issues over cost overruns, design and treatment of substances of emerging concern, Young said.
“We now know that on the main plant — McLoughlin — we were basically on budget. Now we don’t have bids for Hartland for the biosolids [processing], but we have bidders,” Young said.
“People thought it was going to be ugly. It is, in fact, quite attractive. People thought it would not address substances of emerging concern, but advanced oxidation does it very well, better than MBR [membrane bioreactor] technology that you find in tertiary plants in many instances. So I feel there really is a legitimate reason to ask Esquimalt council to think about it again,” Young said.
Asked whether she preferred Esquimalt building and paying for its own treatment plant rather than having a regional plant built at no cost to taxpayers, Desjardins said the question was not that simple.
“It will come down to do you want dollars in your pocket or do you believe the environmental issues that were put forward before are substantial enough not to have that plant at McLoughlin,” she said.
The CRD has to have a plant running by 2018 to meet federal and provincial government funding deadlines.
Leonard said he has seen nothing to indicate that the federal or provincial deadlines are flexible.
“I don’t know what would motivate the federal or provincial government to want them to be flexible,” Leonard said.
If municipalities decide to build their own treatment plants, the funding agreements would be invalidated, according to CRD staff.
