Re: “Toss sewage time-bomb back to the province,” June 14.
Lawrie McFarlane’s column disappointed in being reactionary and irresponsible.
The idea that the province should bully a municipality into reversing its sovereign decision is anti-democratic. Esquimalt spoke for all of Greater Victoria in telling the Capital Regional District to think again about the concept of sewage disposal.
McFarlane correctly explains that the region’s public health officers maintain that the Juan de Fuca Strait does an excellent job of secondary treatment of Victoria’s effluent, using the sweep of the Fraser River to oxidize the organics at great depth to feed the many seawater organisms. These denizens will be deprived of feedstock when our land-based system is implemented. Spending nearly a billion dollars on secondary treatment might mollify our Washington neighbours but is nothing more than a subsidy to Tourism Canada.
The more localized treatment plants should, and probably will, be more expensive but will include tertiary treatment. This is essential to reduce heavy metal and complex organic pollutants with which we soil the sea bottom. If the eastside consortium decides the tertiary treatment plant is best located in Oak Bay, I would be ready to welcome it into my community, but would be as unwilling as an Esquimalt resident to see the white elephant previously considered by the CRD diverted to Oak Bay or anywhere else.
To ignore the benefits of tertiary sewage treatment and urge a return to CRD myopic proposals is irresponsible. If we have to have sewage treatment, then let it be somewhat more expensive, but effective.
Michael Randerson
Oak Bay
