Re: “Centre of Universe education site closing,” June 21.
This most regrettable situation speaks to the need for identifying and supporting our regional priorities, in part through responsible taxation.
The astronomy interpretative centre is a unique and delightful destination at Victoria’s doorstep. It has provided the public with an awesome planetary science and engineering experience, uniquely situated at its intrepid and historical mountain top setting. Annual federal funding ($277,000) is required to sustain operations.
A similarly inspiring destination might be the Morden Colliery Provincial Historic Park near Nanaimo. Provincial funding of $2.2 million is required to restore the 1913 six-storey-high headframe and construct an interpretive centre. But wait — we are closing an existing interpretative site and building another?
At 100 years of age, both of these sites add to the magic of the Island experience.
If municipal, provincial and federal politicians would redirect their outrage from the astronomy centre closing and instead challenge the necessity for Victoria to move to land-based wastewater treatment, we could afford to build and maintain important island tourist sites like the two above.
For that matter, we could easily fund improvements to the stormwater discharges essential to improving the marine environment and build a modest yet amazing public-information centre to promote the natural efficiency of Victoria’s marine-based wastewater treatment process.
Expect more tightening of the purse strings and regrettable “unintended consequences” while we proceed down the expensive and unjustified path of land-based wastewater treatment.
Karen James
Esquimalt
