Re: “Astounding facts surround sewage plan,” letter, June 24.
I would like to clarify some facts. The Capital Regional District’s Liquid Waste Management Plan that the Seaterra Program has been working to implement is not a Band-Aid solution. It provides the core area with a world-class wastewater treatment facility that meets the needs of our region well beyond 2065 and exceeds federal and provincial regulations.
The CRD’s treatment plan includes the addition of an advanced oxidation process to kill pathogens and further reduce the pharmaceuticals, microplastics and other chemicals of concern in wastewater. Secondary treatment combined with this advanced oxidation process is capable of providing better treatment of pharmaceuticals and chemicals than tertiary membrane treatment processes.
Resource recovery is also one of the major components. The treatment plant that was planned for McLoughlin Point would have included heat-recovery facilities to heat on-site buildings and would have provided a heat loop to downtown Esquimalt. The resource-recovery centre will recover biogas, struvite (phosphorus) and dried biosolids from wastewater. By recovering these resources, the CRD could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 6,000 tonnes per year. That’s the equivalent of taking 1,200 cars off the road each year.
The CRD’s plan to implement wastewater treatment will be a large step in a system that will evolve to meet the needs of our region as those needs change. The wastewater treatment plant will provide secondary treatment for the core area and allow us to end the practice of dumping raw sewage into the ocean by 2018.
Albert Sweetnam, program director
Seaterra program
