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RITE plan supporters hardly a fringe group

Re: “Sewage group has little public support,” letter, June 11. The Ipsos Reid survey results contain a serious problem when it separates the “removal of harmful substances” question from “ability to treat wastewater beyond secondary levels.

Re: “Sewage group has little public support,” letter, June 11.

The Ipsos Reid survey results contain a serious problem when it separates the “removal of harmful substances” question from “ability to treat wastewater beyond secondary levels.” This error perhaps led the letter-writer to conclude that the RITE plan group is a fringe group with five per cent support in the survey.

In fact, the RITE plan advocates for distributed tertiary treatment, followed by advanced oxidation and gasification of the sludge. Such treatment is the only way to remove harmful substances from both the recovered water and from the sludge. So if we combine these two questions, which should not have been separated, we get 35 per cent support, hardly a fringe-group result.

Furthermore, the RITE plan also promotes minimizing cost to taxpayers, adding another 19 per cent for the total of 55 per cent, more evidence against a fringe-group result.

Thomas Maler

Victoria