Re: “Bring heat to Esquimalt,” Jan. 17.
Recovering heat energy from the proposed sewage treatment plant at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt continues to be a hot topic of debate.
“In Esquimalt, the buildings are two kilometres from the plant, so a major part of the study will be whether the plan makes financial sense over that distance.”
At Okanagan College the “pipes from the sewage plant to the college boilers are 500 metres long, and if the distance were only a little greater, the system would not have been financially viable.”
And yet, we have the Capital Regional District planning to pipe the sludge to, and water back, from Hartland for a total of 36-kilometre round trip.
Too bad Esquimalt needs to spend so much money to reveal what the CRD already knows from its own studies concluding that for maximum resource recovery, liquids and solids should be processed on the same site. This is impossible at McLoughlin Point because it is just too small.
We should demand a regional strategy that includes a number a smaller treatment facilities as part of a distributed system, built next to hospitals, universities and other public facilities that could benefit from maximum resource recovery.
This is a viable option that has never been seriously investigated.
Instead the CRD continues down a path that is guaranteed to waste energy and money.
Carole Witter
Esquimalt
