Re: “Food scraps could be shipped to mainland,” Feb. 26.
That the Capital Regional District needs an improved strategic planning capability is becoming increasingly clear.
In 2006, the CRD Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee was created, leading to the current $783-million sewage project. Colwood, one of the seven participating municipalities, has threatened to withdraw from the project, and without any contracts for a sewage treatment site or a biosolids and incinerator site, actual costs remain unknown. Unfortunately, with these and other already incurred legal and contractual costs, the currently envisaged project risks being cancelled or postponed, with the attendant project director’s estimate for increased management and inflationary costs of $900,000 a month.
Adding to the CRD’s unfolding sewage debacle is the CRD’s kitchen scraps strategy. The “Feed the land, not the landfill” plan to produce biogas or compost was another costly project started before binding contracts with primary services were confirmed. Residents and the CRD itself have already spent money on a program that, without a local processing site, will now likely cost an additional $5 million for a 20-month processing solution in the Lower Mainland. Hopefully, we’ll not incur a carbon tax for shipping all that waste.
There is little doubt the CRD can, and has (perhaps too late?) hired experienced professional project managers. Risking oversimplification of complex issues, it appears the CRD must improve the front-end strategic planning and confirmation necessary before proceeding with a separate and subsequent project-management process.
We can’t afford any more “fire-aim-ready” management fiascos.
Ron Johnson
Saanich
