Too many Victoria-area residents have come to believe that secondary sewage treatment, as currently proposed, is essential for the health of our environment and a necessary use of more than one billion of your tax dollars.
Unfortunately, this belief is based on MYTHS, not FACTS.
THE BIGGEST MYTH:
The $1-billion-plus secondary sewage treatment that’s being proposed will remove most chemical contaminants from our sewage.
FACT:
None of the treatment methods currently under consideration will remove more than a proportion of these chemical contaminants – metals, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
The CRD’s own figures show that sewage treatment will remove only 22% of arsenic, 17% of cadmium, none (0%) of the lead, 62% of the copper, 35% of the tetrachlorethylene (dry-cleaning fluid) and 50% of the oil and grease that’s currently going out of our sewage outfalls.
The rest of these chemical contaminants will still be discharged into our marine environment through the existing outfalls, while the chemicals which are removed will be concentrated in sludge that will be disposed of on the land.
Plus, significant quantities of contaminants enter the marine environment along our coastline through storm drains. Sewage treatment will do nothing to address this serious problem, and, in fact, will tie-up money that could be used to remedy this.
The best way to keep these contaminants out of the environment is not through sewage treatment, but by expanding the existing CRD’s exemplary Source Control Program. This highly-successful program works with business and the community to keep contaminants from entering sewage flows in the first place. (Between 2005 and 2006, oil and grease levels were cut in half through this program).
MYTH #2:
Land-based sewage treatment is needed to protect public health. Deep ocean sewage disposal puts “floaties” on our beaches.
FACT:
Greater Victoria’s current and previous Chief Medical Health Officers state categorically that our current system of screening sewage and discharging what passes through the screens through long outfall pipes, poses NO measurable threat to human health.
Sewage discharged through our deep ocean outfalls is screened to remove anything larger than 6mm (about ¼-inch) which eliminates “floaties”. What’s going out the outfalls is 99.97% water.
However, after heavy rainfall, sewage and “floaties” are discharged onto our beaches through overflows which are diverted into storm drains. This would not be prevented by any of the land-based sewage treatment methods currently under consideration!
MYTH #3:
There are “dead zones” around Victoria’s deep ocean outfalls.
FACT:
CRD monitoring reports show that sea life thrives around both the Clover and Macaulay outfalls, because of the nutrients in sewage effluent. Mussels around the Clover Point outfall are healthy, and larger than mussels farther away. Concentrations of some pollutants in the seabed are actually lower near the outfalls than farther away, pointing to non-sewage sources (garbage-dumping, shipping, storm drains). In fact, CRD scientists have stated that land-based sewage treatment would actually cause a die-off of sea life near the outfalls, due to a big reduction in the nutrients on which they feed.
MYTH #4:
Sewage treatment, as proposed, would lead to a significant net benefit to the natural environment.
FACT:
Current proposals will actually result in measurable environmental damage. During construction and operation, the treatment plants will create significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Treatment will leave behind a toxic sludge in which contaminants are concentrated, with its associated disposal problems. Scientists say these harms would easily outweigh the negligible benefit to the marine environment.
Myth #5:
Spending more than $1 billion dollars on secondary sewage treatment is the right decision for Greater Victoria.
FACT:
Spending this enormous sum of money on treatment facilities in the Greater Victoria area will not provide significant environmental or health benefits.
However, it will significantly reduce our ability to fund programs that would have much greater environmental and social benefit.
Programs like: enhancing the CRD’s Source Control Program to reduce contaminants in storm water, repairing storm drains and wastewater pipe infrastructure, providing housing for the homeless, health care facilities, public transit, protection of vulnerable marine and terrestrial habitats, reduction of greenhouse gases, etc.
We are
Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria
and we care about our environment
and our community.
WE ARE COMMITTED TO A CLEANER AND HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT FOR GREATER VICTORIA.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
· Visit our website at www.RSTV.ca
· Join the RSTV coalition to influence this planning now!
· Question your municipal representatives about this vital issue. Ask if they’ll demand a cost-benefit analysis before proceeding any further.
· Don’t feel overwhelmed by the subject. Demand answers. Get involved. It’s your money and your community. You deserve the facts.
Do you really want to waste $500 or more of your money, every year, on sewage treatment that will not do what you’ve been told it will?
Or should we spend this money on things that would produce real, measurable, environmental and health benefits?