Re: “Tertiary sewage treatment too expensive,” letter, Sept. 28.
The writer asks how it can possibly be a minimal cost to bring a “purple pipe” carrying recycled water to homes.
One answer lies with our aging infrastructure — a Google search of “inflow-infiltration-dp” brings up the Capital Regional District web page that shows $421 million in underground repairs that must be completed.
This cost is not factored into the CRD’s sewage project, and insufficient matching funds have been committed to help pay for it. Residents of Victoria will soon start funding their share of these repairs via their new stormwater utility bill.
When you consider these inevitable repairs, piping costs are decoupled from the expense of sewage treatment, but this opportunity to provide treated water to homes will disappear without the necessary long-range community planning.
Tertiary treatment makes water safe for re-use. Look to Vernon’s irrigation program that supplies recycled water to agricultural land as just one example.
Homes will eventually be renovated to fully benefit from water re-use, but initial access for new developments and for lawn watering would be the primary application. Increasing use of treated water will also help to defer the huge cost of the future expansion of the water reservoir as our population inevitably grows.
The CRD has gone to great lengths to avoid a dollar-to-dollar comparison of its outdated plan and a forward-thinking decentralized tertiary treatment system using today’s proven technology. We are left wondering why.
Richard Atwell
Victoria
