Re: “Environment tops in sewage survey,” June 9.
The recent Ipsos Reid survey found that 76 per cent of participants consider themselves familiar with the local sewage issue. It didn’t reveal to what extent that familiarity is misperception and misinformation.
What percentage are aware of the facts of the issue, such as that Capital Regional District studies found that the concentrations of metals in the discharge from our outfalls are not toxic, but up to 1,000 times less than standards for drinking water?
Or that the claim by environmental groups that our outfalls have caused vast fecal coliform contamination of local marine sediments was a hoax? Coliforms in the tested sediment samples were what naturally carpet the ocean floor due to teeming life in the ocean.
Or that the impact of our outfall discharge on the sediments is no more than the impact around the outfalls of secondary treatment plants on the west coast of Canada and the U.S.?
And what percentage would support the just-get-it-done attitude if they knew that the system we have treats so effectively that the billion-dollar secondary-treatment system being forced upon us will provide very little, if any, net environmental benefit to our region?
Brian Burchill, chairman
Association for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment
