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Rock Bay likely site of sewage treatment plant

As the clock keeps ticking, it appears almost certain a sewage treatment plant will be located in Victoria’s Rock Bay neighbourhood.
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Remediation work at a Rock Bay site being considered for a sewage treatment plant.

As the clock keeps ticking, it appears almost certain a sewage treatment plant will be located in Victoria’s Rock Bay neighbourhood.

All four treatment options thought to be viable by the Capital Regional District’s consultant team and its technical oversight panel include a “significant site” at Rock Bay with upgrades at Clover Point to handle water flows, members of the core area liquid waste management committee were told Wednesday.

The four options are:

• One plant: Rock Bay secondary treatment with upgraded Clover Point outfall.

• Two plants: Rock Bay, with tertiary treatment at Colwood.

• Four plants: Rock Bay and Colwood, plus secondary treatment at Esquimalt and tertiary at Saanich.

• Seven plants: Rock Bay, Colwood, Langford, View Royal, Esquimalt and two in Saanich. All but Rock Bay to be tertiary.

Cost estimates are expected in December. Specific locations were not identified.

Sewage treatment has three stages. Primary removes solids, secondary removes dissolved organic solids, and tertiary cleans enough to allow for resulting water to be used for irrigation, industrial processes and even drinking.

The CRD committee asked for an option to be analyzed that is totally tertiary and endorsed a recommendation that the CRD secure a treatment plant site at Rock Bay.

Victoria Coun. Geoff Young said it’s frustrating that the process, now about three months behind schedule, has taken so long. He didn’t support asking for an analysis of tertiary options, saying timelines are already extremely tight.

“One of the things that’s missing from the timelines, very clearly, is re-examination of options after the public input,” Young said. The public has clearly indicated it can only provide meaningful input if it knows cost estimates and proposed sites, he said. “The Burnside Gorge neighbourhood, which now knows it’s going to have a plant, is frustrated by its inability to provide feedback because they don’t know exactly where that plant is going to be. What if the public says very clearly: ‘We have a different idea?’ ”

Rock Bay, which is part of Burnside Gorge, is an area of mainly commercial and industrial properties on the northwest end of Victoria’s downtown that hugs the Upper Harbour.

CRD chairman Nils Jensen said the Rock Bay site being eyed is the 1.71 hectares of industrial-zoned land where pollutants are being removed; it is slated to be turned over to the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations.

“There’s no other area with vacant land other than that one,” Jensen said in an interview.

The CRD has until March 2016 to submit a detailed plan for wastewater treatment or risk losing $83.4 million in funding from federal Crown corporation PPP Canada. In addition to the PPP Canada grant, the federal government has committed $120 million from the Building Canada Fund and $50 million from the Canada Green Fund.

Jensen said senior government funding is contingent on treatment not changing too much from the single-plant concept that was originally approved.

“Part of the arrangement was the plan could be changed but no more than 25 per cent of the plan could be changed,” he said. “So whether or not moving to two plants is within those parameters is really something we have to find out from PPP Canada. I would think that the more plants you have, the less likely you are to receive that funding.”

A consultant’s report for west-side municipalities projected capital costs for a single plant on Esquimalt First Nation land at $450.3 million. For two plants — Esquimalt First Nation and Colwood — it increases to $536 million.

Four plants — in Langford, Colwood, View Royal and Esquimalt First Nation — would be $623.2 million.

Jensen said the numbers essentially confirm what the CRD found when it did its first analysis starting in 2008.

“The CRD looked at single, double — a whole bunch of variations — and it was clear at that time when that costing was done that the more plants you have, the more expensive it is,” Jensen said.

bcleverley@timescolonist.com