It's taken more than three years, already cost millions of dollars in studies, tested the patience of the committee and staff dealing with it, seen the West Shore make a step toward independence from the region but finally, a decision is to be made on just where sewage treatment sites will be located.

Or will it?

The Capital Regional District's sewage committee meets Wednesday when it is to make a decision on the site of sewage treatment plants. But the committee and community are still divided on the sites that have been publicly identified. And a site in Victoria's Upper Harbour that many think is the best of all is still being investigated and isn't even officially on the table.

Still, the committee has to make a decision Wednesday in order to get it to the CRD board for approval, so it can meet the provincial government's Dec. 31 deadline for a preliminary sewage treatment plan. The Ministry of Environment has mandated the region to provide sewage treatment, and wants a report on the type, number and location of facilities, preliminary costs and a proposed implementation schedule. The CRD has until the end of the year to provide that amendment to the area's Liquid Waste Management Plan, which oversees how sewage is dealt with.

Ask some committee members if a decision can be made Wednesday, and you're met with a very long pause. Others laugh, a bit nervously. Others wouldn't say publicly.

"A decision? That's my hope but it certainly will be an interesting and lively discussion," said Victoria councillor Geoff Young.

Two sewage treatment sites for the core region will be recommended by staff: One in the Haro Woods area to serve Saanich East and North Oak Bay, and another at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt.

The sludge -- residual, semi-solid material left after treatment -- would be dealt with at an "energy centre" on either the upper Inner Harbour or at the Hartland Road landfill. That sludge can go from waste to energy through treatment, and is a key way for the region to be green and to recoup money.

The Haro Woods and McLoughlin Point sites have their detractors both on the committee and in the community. (See stories above.)

But the real elephant in the room is a site in Victoria's Upper Harbour that the committee is investigating. Although it has not been publicly identified, a September report to the sewage committee says land in the Rock Bay area, such as the former Budget Steel property on Pleasant Street, would be large enough to treat wastewater, digest sludge, process biosolids and process solid waste organics. Having all those processes on one site would shave millions off the estimated $967.5-million price tag for sewage treatment.

Peer reviews and reports from experts say that consolidating all those processes on one site is the best option and it's one Victoria Mayor Dean Fortin would be thrilled to have.

"The Upper Harbour is the preferred option for all of the committee members," said Fortin, who loves the idea of Victoria having a leading-edge, green facility to create energy in one spot.

However, the site for an all-encompassing facility for the core only came up in the past few months, so the work required to secure such a site has yet to be done. It's research that would answer important questions -- What are the environmental and remediation concerns? Is the land even for sale? But the committee has come up against the environment ministry's end-of-the-year cutoff.

"We're certainly struggling with putting in a plan that does not have our preferred option in it, but we do have a deadline to meet," Fortin said.

Sewage committee chairwoman Judy Brownoff said a deadline is a deadline and that the province wants the report by Dec. 31. However, Brownoff said, the province would consider amendments to that plan in the new year, should the Upper Harbour site prove to be better in terms of cost and increased revenue from converting waste to energy.

"It's not a matter of saying, 'Let's hold off and not submit the plan.' The province won't allow that to happen. The report will say that we are continuing to look for siting for the biosolids energy centre and that we will continue to review opportunities to combine liquids and solids processing," Brownoff said.

That will leave the door open to amend the plan to move the treatment centre from McLoughlin Point to the Upper Harbour. The Haro Woods site would remain.

That's not sitting well with Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins. She said the CRD should ask the province for an extension of a few months so that the report can include as much information as possible on the Upper Harbour site.

Desjardins is frustrated with a process that she said will result in a report that doesn't fully reflect the best choices for the largest capital project ever to occur in the capital region.

"You cannot rush this. The dollars are astronomical for taxpayers. We need to have the political will to take forward an amendment that says we have done a lot of terrific work. We've moved a long way toward resource recovery but we're not able to put names to the sites yet. We need another few months for the best choice to be made, with the best information we can gather," Desjardins said.

'We're so close to having it all put together. Let's not ruin it now by making a hasty decision in order to meet a deadline."

Presenting Haro Woods and McLoughlin Point and then changing the McLoughlin Point site in a few months if the Upper Harbour site proves better, doesn't create confidence in the public, she said.

"I'm afraid that, in the end, this kind of thing will hurt the project and not allow it to run as smoothly as it should."

The process has had its challenges from the start. Many residents and experts say sewage treatment isn't needed and that it's a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Wastewater management -- also known as sewage treatment -- is now done via two major regional trunk sewer systems that take collected wastewater to Macaulay Point and Clover Point.

Both run raw wastewater through six-millimetre screens to catch wastewater solids, plastics and floatable material. The remaining material is discharged into the ocean via underwater pipes. It goes out 1,700 metres offshore at Macaulay and 1,200 metres at Clover Point.

While scientists differ over whether this is bad for the environment, the province says it's time to change the process.

Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria has advocated from the start that treatment is not needed. Another anti-treatment group plans a protest outside the legislature Tuesday.

"It's a battle between good science and politics as far as I'm concerned," said retired deputy provincial health officer Shaun Peck. "I feel a sense of public duty to continue to inform local CRD elected officials that there is no good reason to do this, even though they may have been ordered to come up with a plan."

Peck attends almost all sewage committee meetings, and often makes an anti-sewage treatment presentation. He's got it down to an art, knows exactly how long he can talk and times it to the second. He sometimes makes a teasing bow at the end.

It can make sewage committee meetings seem a little like déjà vu all over again. Peck makes an argument, committee members argue, sometimes with staff; another detailed report is presented and some members bring up new ideas on how energy can be used. Saanich Coun. Vic Derman usually speaks every few weeks about a new process that he has researched.

But such is the nature of a process when dealing with an evolving technology and with an issue that has long been divisive in the community. When the sewage committee started in 2006, resource recovery and greenhouse-gas neutrality weren't on the radar screen. As the committee began looking into sewage treatment, these became key issues.

And with technologies on how to best make use of wastewater and biosolids from sewage treatment evolving all the time, picking the technology -- the next step in the process -- is bound to be as difficult as picking the sites.

"As far as I can tell, they don't have a firm decision on the sites," Peck said. "The longer they take, the happier I am. The science just isn't there that treatment is needed."

Peck thinks the province and the federal government -- each is to fund one-third of the project -- will blink after the February Olympics are over.

Environment Minister Barry Penner says pumping wastewater into the ocean might have been acceptable 150 years ago, but it's not anymore.

"We're in the 21st century and we need to do things differently than we did."

kwestad@tc.canwest.com