Persuade the premier to axe sewage treatment
Letter to Times Colonist - 5 April 2010
I am a father of three and grandfather of six. We must not make them pay for an ill-designed secondary sewage treatment plan for Victoria.
For 30 years I led a research team on polar oceanography, working primarily in the high Arctic, providing advice to the Canadian government.
For the first time in my life I am going beyond advice to try and save my descendents from a terribly expensive and unnecessary scheme based on an inadequate or biased understanding of sewage problems in Victoria. Look to the website www.RSTV.ca to get the technical opinion of internationally respected scientists, engineers and health officials.
Filtered human waste by itself does not present a serious problem when pumped into the strong tidal currents and open strait offshore of Victoria. Other, far more toxic, components must be controlled at source by a random sampling of the sewage at the many inspection points currently available. To trace back these components to their point of insertion should be easy and the perpetrator fined.
The Capital Regional District may call for a referendum on sewage treatment, but in itself, this will not allow cancellation of the instruction given to the CRD by the provincial government. We must try to get the premier to change his mind, and the only way to do this is by force of numbers. We need thousands of individual voters to send an e-mail to gordon.campbell.mla @leg.bc.ca or fax (250) 387-0087 with your comments. Don't think you can leave it to someone else; don't use a form letter; don't put it off to tomorrow. Please put some time and energy into helping our children today. Very soon it really will be too late.
E. L. Lewis
Victoria