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Colwood gets ‘go’ for own sewage plant

Colwood has the green light from the Capital Regional District to test the waters for building its own tertiary-treatment sewage plant. A city-owned site at what is now the B.C.
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Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton: Decision "allows us to move forward in a way that is better suited for Colwood."

Colwood has the green light from the Capital Regional District to test the waters for building its own tertiary-treatment sewage plant.

A city-owned site at what is now the B.C. Transit park-and-ride at Ocean Boulevard, next to the Juan de Fuca recreation complex, is being considered, said Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton.

“We own the land already so there’s no cost outlay on that. It would be largely underground with an above-ground component.”

The CRD’s liquid waste management committee was unanimous in giving approval in principle to Colwood on Wednesday, and the CRD board was also supportive.

Hamilton called the go-ahead “just a first step.”

“It allows us to move forward in a way that is better suited for Colwood,” Hamilton said. “But it’s a long time to go yet. We’ll be rolling up our sleeves and getting at it.”

She said that in Colwood, which has about 5,000 homes and 17,000 residents, “we just don’t have the numbers” to get the full benefit from being part of the planned $783-million regional secondary-treatment system. About 1,000 Colwood homes are on sewers and the rest are on septic.

Hamilton said an independent approach would allow Colwood to take a more gradual approach to increasing capacity and design a plant that suits its needs.

“This will be a modular system that will hook in and deal with as much as we’ve got to put into it, right at this point.”

She noted Colwood’s two biggest developments are multi-phase initiatives — the Capital City Centre and Royal Bay projects — with completion targets of 15 to 20 years.

Cost estimates are still being worked out, Hamilton said.

“It would all depend on where do we put it, what are we hooking into.”

While the switch for Colwood could cost the average household in the region about $16 per year in the short term, there will be an ultimate gain, Hamilton said. She said taxpayers outside Colwood will be spared paying for a share of a West Shore plant, which the regional plan anticipates being built in the 2030s.

“When it comes time to build that second plant, it will already be here,” she said.

“Taxpayers will save an estimated $245 each year in future costs, creating a net savings of thousands over the long term.”

Total savings would be about $5,750 per household, according to Colwood’s report on its sewage proposal. The plan would also add four to five years of life to the regional plant at McLoughlin Point, it says.

Hamilton said Colwood still shares the regional vision for dealing with sewage.

“We’re still part of the concept of treating sewage. We’re just doing it in a different way.”

She said the Colwood plant could be ready some time in 2016. The regional system is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

Rather than an outfall, the Colwood plan calls for treated effluent to be discharged into the ground, said municipal engineer Michael Baxter.

He said it will be a long process to determine what is economically feasible and what is ultimately allowed.

“If what we propose doesn’t work in the end, then there is no loss to anybody in the CRD except Colwood,” Baxter said.

jwbell@timescolonist.com