Mayor Barb Desjardins of Esquimalt suggests that moving ahead with the wastewater treatment plan for the region’s core area is an unpopular decision.
Wastewater treatment is a difficult and complex issue, as is any regional issue of such environmental, social and economic importance. But I think we can all agree that we have been dumping raw sewage into our ocean for far too long. Now is the time to move ahead with wastewater treatment in the region’s core area.
Construction has already started under the Seaterra program to provide wastewater treatment for the core-area municipalities within four years. Many would say — including our neighbours to the south, our funding partners, environmental groups and many of our visiting tourists — it’s about time. The Capital Regional District has already implemented secondary treatment programs outside the core area on the Saanich Peninsula, Port Renfrew and on Saltspring Island.
As for how the core-area treatment program was developed, the CRD completed a comprehensive and lengthy planning process spanning many years and costing millions of dollars.
Since 2006, the CRD has considered, analyzed and evaluated the capital and operating costs for a variety of approaches to treatment and numerous siting options. The CRD directors who make up the core area liquid waste management committee made decisions to advance the plan for wastewater treatment with full information and in consideration of the collective interests of the region’s residents.
If we were to reimagine the Seaterra program as a decentralized system today, where would we be? We would have no funding commitments, years of planning ahead and federal regulation deadlines drawing nearer. A $500-million loss of funding is a big downside that would triple the costs to CRD core-area taxpayers — the existing funding commitments are based on the current, approved plan, not a reimagined decentralized approach.
The CRD board has already considered a decentralized approach with potential wastewater treatment plants at Haro Woods in Saanich, Westhills in Langford, Colwood city hall, Clover Point in Victoria and Windsor Park in Oak Bay, to name a few. Between 2006 and 2009, the CRD considered a decentralized approach that included up to 11 treatment plants. The capital and operating cost estimates for this approach are more than double the cost estimates for the current plan. The current, approved plan offers the best value for money.
Today, we have a plan for treatment that will provide the best and most current technology that reflects input from an expert North American peer-review team, qualified consultants, municipalities and community members. As Desjardins notes, the Seaterra program staff and consultants have implemented different types of wastewater treatment projects across North America successfully. These same experts have confirmed that a centralized wastewater treatment program is the best approach for the CRD.
While it hasn’t always been a smooth ride, the CRD has worked with the seven core municipalities throughout the planning process and during the implementation of the Seaterra program.
The CRD shifted sites for the proposed main wastewater treatment facility from Macaulay Point to McLoughlin Point at the suggestion of the township of Esquimalt and concerned residents in 2008.
Why, then, the sudden about-face by the township of Esquimalt against a site they suggested and subsequently zoned for a wastewater treatment plant? The township has been a part of the liquid waste management planning process since 2006, and as recently as July 2013 passed a rezoning bylaw in support of developing a wastewater treatment plant at McLoughlin Point.
The CRD has been moving forward with implementing a liquid-waste management plan supported by all the core area municipalities.
We don’t know the ultimate impact of Esquimalt’s April 7 decision not to rezone McLoughlin Point to allow for minor height and setback variances for the development of a wastewater treatment plant.
What we do know is that it will have financial, social and environmental impacts on the CRD’s core area taxpayers.
Every month we do not move forward with implementing the approved treatment program, we do not save money — we shirk our social and environmental responsibility and continue to dump raw sewage into the ocean.
The CRD’s Seaterra program is continuing to move ahead with construction and community engagement to ensure we meet our funding agreement deadlines, keep the program on budget and most importantly, bring wastewater treatment to our region sooner rather than later.
Albert Sweetnam is director of the Seaterra program.
