Eight years ago, the province ordered sewage treatment for the capital region. Provincial and federal deadlines for land-based treatment are that much closer, but a solution seems further away than ever.
The municipalities involved are pondering the next steps, but they don’t have unlimited time. Unless decisive steps are taken soon, this issue threatens to slide backward into expensive chaos.
Some steps have begun. Victoria has hired consultants and is working with Saanich and Oak Bay to explore local or sub-regional options to replace the Capital Regional District’s regional plan that collapsed last summer when Esquimalt refused to allow the treatment plant to be built at McLoughlin Point.
Plans are being developed by Victoria to engage the public. Meanwhile, a survey is seeking input on the possibility of a sewage-treatment plant for Colwood, Esquimalt, Langford, View Royal and the Songhees First Nation.
It’s commendable that people want to do studies, to get input and find a solution that is affordable and effective, but what has been going on for the past eight years? The CRD’s waste-treatment committee did extensive professional studies into the options, including distributed treatment, which was deemed to be too expensive, and came up with the proposal for the central plant. The studying and planning have already cost $60 million.
Critics of the proposal came from several different directions. Some believed the current method of discharging sewage into the ocean is suitable. Some believed the proposal for secondary treatment was out of date, and that tertiary treatment is needed to keep harmful substances from being discharged into the ocean. Some favoured the distributed approach — treating sewage at several smaller plants.
Those are not unreasonable approaches, not ideas from the wild-eyed fringe. Yet they imply that the CRD experts did not know what they were talking about, that they were wrong in their conclusions, that they did not consider all options. How likely is it new studies will come up with different solutions? If they just re-invent the wheel, it will be an expensive wheel.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps is strong on consulting the public. “The public didn’t buy into the original plan,” she says.
But do we know that? The only effort that sought to gauge public opinion on the issue was not a scientific poll, but a telephone survey conducted by the Sewage Treatment Action Group, in the group’s own words, “to raise awareness about the limitations of secondary treatment.” It found the majority of people were “concerned,” which is too vague to draw firm conclusions. It would have been helpful if the CRD had conducted a scientific survey to get a better idea of public support.
Municipal leaders want consensus, but unanimity will be impossible. It has been and always will be a divisive issue. Compromise will necessarily be part of any successful plan.
The thing that stopped the original plan in its tracks was the location, when Esquimalt refused to rezone the McLoughlin Point site. Regardless of what is determined by further studies, one fact won’t change — finding a site or sites for sewage treatment will be extremely difficult.
The precedent has been set; a municipality can simply say no, and the province won’t override it. The leadership on the issue has been taken away from the CRD, so who will lead?
Doing nothing is not an option — senior governments have made that clear.
Neither is going slowly. While hasty decisions are inadvisable, deliberations cannot proceed at a leisurely pace.
Eight years after the region was ordered to start planning for sewage treatment, there is no plan. It seems we are back at square one. Let’s hope resolving this issue doesn’t take another eight years.
