Plans in the pipeline for CRD sewage treatment

What residents can expect between now and next year's deadline for final strategy

Chris Clement,

Special to Times Colonist

August 11, 2008

In early July 2008, the Capital Regional District received an extension from the province for the delivery of the amendment to the Core Area Liquid Waste Management Plan.

The amendment is now due on Dec. 31, 2009. The one-year extension by the Minister of Environment has given the CRD a valuable opportunity to research several important issues pertaining to wastewater treatment in the core area, which includes the municipalities of Colwood, Esquimalt, Langford, Oak Bay, Saanich, Victoria and View Royal.

The extra time will lead to significant steps forward in the months to come. Through the fall of 2008 and into the early spring of 2009, the CRD will continue its research of integrated resource management strategies, including water reuse, energy and heat recovery and greenhouse-gas-reduction methods.

Sustainable practices are of utmost importance to the CRD. The additional time for detailed analysis will help determine how these strategies can be implemented.

The CRD's integrated resource management strategy will seek to minimize the total cost to taxpayers. It will do this by maximizing economic and financial benefits through the reuse of resources and generation of offsetting revenue. The CRD's goals are the sustainable management of water, stormwater and solid waste, and their integration with energy planning and smart urban growth.

The CRD will also further develop the distributed treatment plant model in the core area. Distributed treatment involves the construction of a number of smaller plants, which may provide for increased opportunity to implement integrated resource management strategies. The time extension will aid the CRD in a thorough exploration of this important issue.

Source control, a regional program of the CRD's, is also a major facet of wastewater treatment, both now and in the future.

Source control limits the amount and type of contaminants entering drains and sewer pipes, thus placing less stress on marine environments. The CRD's source control program is one of the most comprehensive in North America. Clean water begins at home, and the CRD will continue to ask for residents' and businesses' dedication to good source-control practices, both during planning and after the wastewater project is complete.

A new wastewater treatment project manager, Tony Brcic, has recently been hired by the CRD and will commence work in August 2008. His expertise in both small and large public infrastructure projects, such as Sooke's wastewater treatment plant and Vancouver Island's natural gas pipeline, will make him a valuable resource during the tenure of the project.

Public consultation is an integral part of the wastewater treatment planning process, and the CRD is committed to open and transparent dialogue with residents and First Nations. New information on research findings and the status of the wastewater project will be forthcoming in spring 2009. At this time, the CRD will engage in consultation and education campaigns on its findings and options.

Currently in the CRD, secondary and tertiary (biological treatment) is in operation on Saltspring Island, Pender Island, the Saanich Peninsula and Port Renfrew. The core area wastewater treatment project requires diligent research, superior planning and dedication to public consultation.

The CRD's triple bottom line methodology will consider the social, environmental and economic factors involved in wastewater treatment.

The CRD's researchers and engineers, well versed in infrastructure and planning options, will help create a wastewater solution that ensures protection of the environment and the health of future generations.

- Chris Clement is chairman of the Capital Regional District's Core

Area Liquid Waste Management Committee.

More time needed on sewage options

Editorial - Times Colonist - May 22, 2008

With deadlines looming for its decisions on sewage treatment, the Capital Regional District board has been handed a road map taking it in an entirely different direction. The region should have 32 house-sized treatment plants, rather than four large ones, according to a report done for the province. These small plants, near large businesses, institutions and residential projects, could allow the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars through the sale of heat, electricity and clean water. They would also allow the region to start treatment with a modest pilot program. The 32-plant proposal would result in a massive redrafting of treatment plans. Given that we are on the brink of spending about $1.2 billion to treat the waste we generate, it makes sense to consider the new proposal. It would be wrong, however, to accept it as the best answer, especially as peer reviews have raised serious concerns about its potential success. Small-scale treatment plants can be made to work; Victoria's new Dockside Green has become a model for its on-site handling of sewage. More small-scale plants could make sense in parts of Greater Victoria. Building a sewage treatment plant as part of a new development -- residential, industrial or even at the University of Victoria -- could be viable. It would be more challenging to place a plant in developed areas, where neighbours might be less than enthusiastic. The report does not pin down costs, saying a 32-plant system could cost between $594 million and $1 billion. The peer reviews questioned the cost numbers and the revenue estimates. It is at this point impossible to compare costs and benefits with the proposed $1.2-billion, four-plant solution. Issues like maintenance costs and lost economies of scale are still uncertain. The report hints at this problem. It cites as a benefit the number of jobs that would be created, noting a Swedish city of 500,000 people needs about 1,000 people on staff to run its waste system. That number should raise alarm bells about operating costs. The report correctly argues that the capital region's sewage treatment plans should allow the maximum use of waste and the maximum potential for revenue. But that is not a new idea; it is one of the principles guiding CRD planners as they have struggled to meet the deadlines set by the provincial government. The province wants a preliminary business plan from the CRD by the end of June and a completed document by the end of the year. That doesn't provide much time to consider the many options and the 32-plant idea adds yet another dimension to an already complicated debate. Opinions on sewage treatment in the region have been sharply divided for years, with sound arguments on both sides. Given the amount of money involved, decisions cannot be taken lightly or without considering all of the options. The provincial government is right to seek action. But the current deadlines are unreasonable. The CRD needs more time to ensure that the best solution is identified -- an idea local representatives might embrace, considering that this is a municipal election year.

Maybe Mr. Floatie is making our sewage decisions

Iain Hunter, Special to Times Colonist

Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2008

It was a March afternoon in 1843 -- the 14th as I recall -- when the Beaver, bearing James Douglas, anchored in Shoal Bay at the end of my street.

I can imagine Douglas now, watching the currents and remarking that this would be an admirable site for a sewage outfall to serve Fort Victoria, which he would site the next day.

This being Oak Bay, other locations had to be found, of course, but I'm confident that Douglas never considered secondary treatment necessary. A lot of folks around here today agree with him, still.

It was presumptuous of Stéphane Dion, when he was environment minister, to come and tell us at this end of the Island that we must provide secondary sewage treatment because it's "the right thing to do."

It's presumptuous of provincial Environment Minister Barry Penner to tell us today that secondary treatment is necessary because our sewage "stinks" and because people relying on streams and lakes for disposal have to provide that level of treatment.

It's insulting for senior levels of government to tell us that taxpayers all across Canada and all around B.C. will help us pay for the upgrade when, as we've just learned, it'll cost ratepayers as much as $700 a year in extra taxes by the time it comes on line.

Our most highly respected medical and public health professionals have told us there's no health risk from what we discharge now, in the way that we discharge it. Highly respected scientists familiar with the local marine environment have said land-based secondary treatment isn't necessary here, would create new disposal problems and not remove all contaminants that are simply assumed to be potentially damaging.

Both the doctors and scientists say there are far higher priorities for our tax dollars than massaging and moving sewage sludge about.

Penner, who probably relies on the advice of people playing with computer models and sloshing stuff around in bathtubs, has declared the debate over before it's even begun. We've a pretty good idea of what it's going to cost us, or those of us who are left, when the treatment plants fire up and the smelly trucks roll through our communities.

But we don't know what the plants will look like, or where they'll be or even how many will be required. And the provincial government is sitting on a study on how to recover water and energy from plants so that the regional district doesn't have all the information it needs to come up with an interim plan before the imposed June 30 deadline.

Sometimes it looks as if Mr. Floatie is in charge.

I don't understand this one-size-fits-all mentality in government. I don't understand why people who live on the edge of an ocean have to behave like people who live in a swamp.

It's as if politicians who represent swamp-dwellers have decided that we, who pay a lot to live here, are still getting away with too much.

The public health officials say there's no measurable public health risk from what emerges at the end of our outfalls, but decry the lack of assessment of health and environmental risks from land-based plants.

The scientists say it's unnecessary to reduce biochemical oxygen demand, nutrients and human pathogens that pose no serious environmental risk in our energetic waters which are rich in nutrients naturally.

While some potentially toxic chemicals would be removed from effluent and concentrated in sludge, causing new problems, others would still be discharged after secondary treatment. We still haven't studied other sources of pollution in our waters or what contaminants might really present a problem.

A B.C.-Washington state marine science panel concluded in 1994 that we were not creating a problem across the Strait, which disappointed environmental authorities in the U.S. who, like ours, had made up their minds.

The U.S. National Research Council the year before concluded that wastewater treatment in coastal areas should be site-specific and that a blanket technology-based approach was a waste of money, and source control effective. In Washington state, where millions of dollars were spent on unnecessary secondary treatment, they're wishing they had the choice we still have.

San Diego has been operating on waivers from federal law requiring secondary treatment since 1994. But it's threatened, too, by ignorant people who presume to tell others what's the right thing to do.

Sewage: A good issue goes very bad  - Les Leyne, Times Colonist

Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The problem: How to install a $1.2-billion, 21st-century sewage treatment system in a region that never got around to it in the last century, without letting the cost energize the anti-treatment forces to the point that everyone takes a second look and agrees maybe we should wait until the 22nd century.

This is the kind of giant public policy headache they should be teaching in political science classes or at the Harvard Business School. Anyone who comes up with a workable solution would be entitled to an instant PhD.

Every entity from the View Royal works yard to 24 Sussex Drive has to get its act together and commit to a decade-long project. Regional jealousies abound. Provincial orders are being questioned. Federal politics is being played. Secret plans are being hatched.

Can the "Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee" save the day?

Members will sit down again today to ponder this nightmare project. Right off the bat, the agenda lists an argument that's good for a year or more. The potential cost per household ranges from $157 a year in Langford to $712 a year in Oak Bay.

"As there is no cost sharing formula, the examples are illustrative only," reads the agenda. It's a bleak illustration. (The only thing that eases the $464 load of pain coming my way in Saanich is the comforting thought that my Oak Bay friends will be paying $248 more.)

But what compounds the cost headache is the fact the project will consume the bulk of the federal and provincial money that might be expected to arrive locally for the next several years.

While there's no regional cost-sharing formula for the seven municipalities yet, the costs will be split three ways -- federally, provincially and locally. At least one regional leader has concluded that the federal infrastructure account from which the treatment dollars would flow will be drained as far the capital region is concerned.

That means forgoing a fair number of far sexier projects for the next several years.

A few years ago Victoria looked like a good place to make an environmental stand -- a "cheap date," said one official -- when federal and provincial politicians seized on sewage treatment as a political issue.

Working guesstimates then were in the $500-million range. So federal Tories supported the project to impart a green tinge to their platform.

B.C. supported it on more or less the same basis. It seemed a reasonable price to pay to out-green the NDP.

Then Environment Minister Barry Penner was pressured into ordering treatment.

Since then the Liberals have been somewhat naively holding out the hope that making the mammoth job a public-private partnership will curtail costs.

As outlined on this page yesterday, their other helpful idea has turned into a bizarre sidebar. The province commissioned its own study of alternative treatment plans, which has been completed and turned in. But while the government wants a business plan from the regional district by June 30, it won't release the alternatives plan, saying it hasn't been checked out properly.

These are the kind of hitches the opponents of treatment will seize on. "No treatment needed" was the conventional wisdom for decades, until Penner signed the cabinet order in 2006. Now the skeptics are on the outs, but campaigning to get back in.

A local official I talked to wonders if they're making much headway. There's been minimal concern about costs so far, perhaps because the hundreds of dollars more a year were just vague estimates until last week. Now the number is firming up.

Opposition New Democrats are also in favour of treatment. They're hoping the estimates are ultra-conservative worst-case numbers that will drop as the project takes shape. They're also counting on some cost recovery, from sale of energy that might be produced by state of the art treatment plants.

But it's equally conceivable the price tag will increase. Scope creep is a fact of life. Federal and provincial governments are unlikely to sit and watch the project escalate into more and more ambitious phases without capping their one-third commitments.

So all the add-ons designed to make the system a world-beater might wind up being added just to local residents' share of the bill.

That's what being 50 years late gets you.

lleyne@tc.canwest.com

Treatment Troubles - So many sewage choices, so little time to decide

By Sid Tafler

Monday Magazine

March 27 - April 2

Psst, looking for work? The CRD has been trying to hire a project manager for its sewage treatment project, but hasn't had any takers so far.

Well, we are in a tight labour market, but maybe that’s only part of the problem. The manager of this $1.7 - billion project - the largest in the history of the region - will have to swim upstream against the wishes of much of the community, including many who'll want to wish the whole project away...

along with the new manager.

Due to heavy-handedness by the provincial government and the resulting full-throttle approach by the CRD, the public has been left to fend for themselves and try to figure out a project many feel will bring higher taxes and no net benefit to public health and the environment.

What we have are two conversations about sewage treatment going on in this town: one is whether we should have it at all— and nearly two years after the decision was man-dated by the province, many are still saying we shouldn't, including some well-informed people who have researched the issue thoroughly, and some of our most respected political leaders of past and present. The people having the other conversation are barreling ahead with the project, led by the CRD, discussing details like where the treatment plants will be, whether the system will be run by the public or private sector, and how to dis-pose of waste or recover resources like energy and water.One day these two conversations will have to come together, and this may be the task of the new project manager, since politicians seem incapable of drawing a circle around the two groups. If they don’t, we'll continue to have much of the population feeling disenfranchised and alienated—all the worse, since they’ve being asked to pay for it.

The best idea I've heard yet for achieving a compromise comes from Fairfield resident Ken Roueche, a long-time observer of the debate, who suggests the project begin with a single plant on the fast-growing West Shore, rather than moving ahead lock-step with a huge megaproject that will affect seven municipalities and eat up so much public land and treasure. Get it right the first time - with state-of-the-art green technology - and then proceed from there.

At the root of the gap in understanding is the lack of public consultation by the people in charge, as the project moves ahead at a pace mandated by environment minister Barry Penner, leaving the public scratching their heads and wondering how badly they’re going to get skinned and how much of our waterfront is going to be disrupted or possibly altered forever.

For instance, I wonder how many people know that a large pipe will have to be built - likely over land—from Clover Point to Macaulay Point, a distance of about six kilometers? That would mean digging up Dallas Road through Fairfield, Beacon Hill Park and James Bay, then going underwater across the harbour to Esquimalt, to carry sewage to the central treatment plant at Macaulay.

If you travel any of these routes, up against tourist traffic in the summer, you're likely already shuddering at the idea of up to two years of noise and disruption, and you may shudder again at die likely discovery of native sites along a route that is rich in long-lost middens, encampments and settlements, which could cause additional cost and more months of delay.

Or how many folks know that we're talking about not one but at least six treatment plants spread around the district - the major facility at Macaulay, four other liquid treatment plants and at least one sludge processing facility.

Try talking your neighbours into one of those.

It's evident that Penner’s rigorous time-table - his initial order of July 21, 2006 demanded detailed plans and "a fixed schedule for sewage treatment" in less than a year - has served to exclude proper discussion or consultation.

Maybe he’s afraid his directive will be exposed as political doctrine unsupported by scientific research if he allows time for full public debate.

Someone should ask him what the hurry is. He was barely in the position of minister of environment for a year when he carne down with his order, as if sewage treatment for Victoria was one of the top priorities in the province. I wonder if he’s ever uttered a word, for instance, about the huge quantities of greenhouse gases released by the forest industry, the elephant in the room of the provinces global warming strategy. In the not-too-distant future, we'll have the country’s cleanest, greenest sewage effluent in Victoria, just as the last old growth forest on unprotected land on the Island is mowed down and turned into a clearcut.

The Penner whip was in evidence at an early meeting of a CRD advisory committee on sewage treatment last May, as someone wondered whether to ask the overlords at the legislature for a time extension. The response was emphatic: "No. The CRD plans to meet the June 30 deadline. If there is too much consultation, the project will be delayed."

Too much public consultation? How about just a little? So far, there’s been next to none, and the concern is many of the important decisions will have already been made by die time the CRD gets around to holding public hearings, the community-based Sewage Treatment Action Group in Esquimalt has charged.

So public groups like STAG have been holding their own meetings and pressuring the CRD to look at alternatives, such as locating the major plant at MacLaughlin Point, the oil storage tank site at the entrance to the rather than the park-like Macaulay Point a few kilometres to the west.

Personally, I think MacLaughlin Point is the perfect location, if only because our sewage treatment project is in part a public relations exercise to appease our American neighbours. As the Coho or Clipper enters the harbour, passengers would be greeted by a huge green sign: "Victoria’s Sewage Treatment Plant. You’re Welcome."

VICTORIA: WASTE TREATMENT PLANT MP slams 'boondoggle' sewage plan

SID TAFLER

Special to The Globe and Mail

March 5, 2008

VICTORIA -- Liberal MP Keith Martin has joined the chorus of doubt about Victoria's $1.2-billion sewage treatment project, calling the plan "a financial boondoggle" that will cause more damage to the environment than it prevents.

Dr. Martin is urging B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner to examine the costs and health hazards and reconsider his plan to compel the Victoria region to build a sewage treatment system.

"With all due respect, your position is not supported by the facts," Dr. Martin said in a letter to Mr. Penner this week. "I believe that you have been misled in terms of the ... scientific evidence."

Dr. Martin, a physician and an MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, where the major sewage treatment plant will be, echoes concerns voiced by marine scientists and public-health officials that the project will be hazardous to the environment and to human health.

"These issues have not been looked at," Dr. Martin said in his letter. "I am more worried now than ever before that precious taxpayer's money will produce a financial boondoggle with a new source of damage to our environment."

Dr. Martin and Mr. Penner, who insists that sewage treatment is needed to protect the environment, represent two sides of a debate that has been raging in Victoria for many years and has gained new life in recent months despite Mr. Penner's order to proceed with the project.

Those who oppose the plan say Victoria's sewage is already dispersed effectively through deep-water outfalls and ocean currents.

They are worried about the health effects of separating sludge at a land-based sewage treatment plant and transporting it for disposal through residential neighbourhoods.

"As a physician, I'm concerned about building a land-based system that will truck toxins into our environment and make our environment worse," Dr. Martin said in an interview. "These impacts are not being factored in."

Dr. Martin said a sewage treatment plant would not remove some of the most toxic pollutants from sewage effluent. He is also concerned that Victoria will miss out on more urgent priorities, such as light rail transit, if senior levels of government spend hundreds of million of dollars on a treatment plant.

He called on Mr. Penner to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the project, currently being planned by the Capital Regional District. "This would be a responsible thing to do and a face-saving initiative that most taxpayers would clearly understand."

Dr. Martin is also lobbying against the plan in Ottawa, meeting with an aide to Environment Minister John Baird, who he said was "surprised to learn" that Victoria's sewage is filtered and dispersed into the ocean a kilometre from shore, not dumped in the harbour.

In recent weeks, public forums on the issue have been held in Victoria, including two organized by Dr. Martin, and letters have been published opposing the project, including one signed by Richard Stanwick, Chief Medical Health Officer for Vancouver Island, and five former medical health officers.

"It does not make sense to plan a massive public expenditure for which no measurable benefit has been identified," the letter said. The money for sewage treatment would be better spent on source control, preventing pollutants from entering sewers in the first place, and on other public health issues, such as housing for the homeless, it said.

Another letter, signed by 10 prominent scientists, including marine biologist Peter Chapman, who was contracted by the CRD to study the issue, dismissed concerns about Victoria's sewage disposal.

"Monitoring programs and basic considerations have given no indication of severe, or even moderate, harm to the marine environment from Victoria's effluent discharges," it said.

LOCAL SEWAGE TREATMENT QUESTIONS CONTINUE

Jan 23, 2008 - CFAX Radio THE PUBLIC DEBATE ON THE NEED FOR SEWAGE TREATMENT CONTINUES, BUT AS FAR AS THE C.R.D. IS CONCERNED, IT'S A CLOSED DISCUSSION.
THE C.R.D. SEWAGE TREATMENT COMMITTEE HEARD FROM A UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA HEALTH-ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, DR. REBECCA WARBURTON WEDNESDAY.
SHE SAYS OCEAN DUMPING IS ADEQUATE -- AND SAYS THE PUBLIC HAS YET TO GET A CLEAR GRIP ON WHAT LAND-BASED SEWAGE TREATMENT MEANS.
"THE AMOUNT OF LAND [THE TREATMENT PLANTS ARE] GOING TO TAKE, POSSIBLE NOISE, ODOUR, TRUCKS CARRYING SLUDGE -- I DON'T THINK PEOPLE HAVE A GOOD IMAGE IN THEIR MINDS OF WHAT THAT'S GOING TO LOOK LIKE," SHE SAYS.
DR. WARBURTON IS OF THE OPINION THAT OCEAN CURRENTS DO A GOOD JOB OF DISPERSING OUR WASTE.
WARBURTON SAYS THE PROJECT BUDGET COULD BE PUT TO MUCH BETTER USE.
"$1.2 BILLION IS A HUGE EXPENDITURE -- TWELVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS," SHE SAYS. "WE HAVE COMPETING NEEDS FOR THE HOMELESS POPULATION, BETTER TRANSIT, IMPROVING THE ISLAND HIGHWAY -- MANY, MANY THINGS WE CAN THINK OF THAT WOULD BE BETTER FOR HUMAN HEALTH, CLEARLY.
"THE WORST SEWAGE PROBLEM THAT WE HAVE LOCALLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE OUTFALLS, IT'S OUR STORM DRAINS THAT ARE INADEQUATE, AND PERIODICALLY IN THE WINTER FLOW SEWAGE RIGHT ONTO OUR BEACHES."
"THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST PUBLIC POLICY DECISIONS I'VE EVER SEEN IN ALL MY YEARS WORKING IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE, AND SERVING AS AN EXPERT AND A SCHOLAR IN THE AREA OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION."
DR. WARBURTON ALSO SAYS THE COST IS STILL UP IN THE AIR -- AND SAYS IT'S UP TO THE C.R.D. TO TELL THE PUBLIC WHAT EACH HOUSEHOLD WILL BE PAYING.
"WE'RE WAY FURTHER DOWN THIS ROAD THAN WE SHOULD BE, WITH PEOPLE HAVING NO INFORMATION. THE EVIDENCE ON BENEFITS IS VERY WEAK -- THE EVIDENCE ON COSTS IS INADEQUATE. HOW IS THAT A GOOD BASIS FOR EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING? IT'S CRAZY."
WARBURTON FEARS THE COST COULD SKYROCKET IF HUMAN REMAINS OR OTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL ITEMS ARE UNEARTHED DURING CONSTRUCTION -- AND SAYS GREATER VICTORIA TAXPAYERS WOULD BE ON THE HOOK FOR THE HUGE EXPENSES INCURRED WHEN SUCH A DISCOVERY IS MADE.
C.R.D. BOARD CHAIR DENISE BLACKWELL SAYS THEY'RE STILL WAITING FOR SOME NUMBERS TO COME IN BEFORE THAT FIGURE CAN BE FINALIZED.
BLACKWELL SAYS THE WORK HAS BEEN ORDERED BY THE PROVINCE, AND SAYS PLANNING WILL THUS PROCEED DESPITE THE OBJECTIONS OF SOME.
- IRELAND

MP pooh-poohs sewage-treatment plans

Liberal Keith Martin says there are better uses for the money

Michael Smyth - The Province

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Scuba divers, kayakers and windsurfers in Victoria are blessed with a natural playground right on their coastal doorstep.

But even beginner watersport buffs know enough to steer clear of the dreaded IDZ -- the "initial dilution zone" to you landlubbers.

The IDZ is Victoria's notorious offshore cesspool -- the section of seabed where the city's sewage is pumped into the cold, churning waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The provincial capital is one of the few major cities in the country that doesn't treat the stuff that swirls down its drains and toilets.

Instead, the city's sewage is pumped through a screened pipe directly into the strait, where -- in theory anyway -- it's broken down and rendered harmless by the frigid, fast-flowing waters.

Who needs an expensive sewage-treatment plant when nature does just as good a job, right? At least that's the argument of Keith Martin, the local Liberal MP.

"Currently, what organic matter flows out of the outfalls in the strait is food for the creatures that live in the sea," Martin wrote in a local newspaper editorial last week.

"It is no secret that the area near the outfalls is a very productive fishing spot."

But going out there in a fishing boat is one thing, dunking your head under is another matter, counters B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner.

"There's a reason kayakers and scuba divers are told to avoid the area," Penner argues.

"There are toxins out there. Sewage can float to the surface. Use your imagination."

Now the B.C. and federal governments have committed to a $1.2-billion sewage-treatment plant for the city, with the cost to be split one-third each with the Capital Regional District.

Martin thinks it's a waste of money that "will add several hundred dollars to every Victorian's tax bill for many years to come." If you want to help the ocean and improve the environment, he argues, you'd be better off fixing crumbling storm sewers and building rapid transit.

Penner fires back: "It's not an either/or situation. Oceans are already under pressure from things like climate change. Look at declining fish stocks. Sewage treatment needs to be done."

But Martin joins a couple of other high-profile contrarians on the issue.

Former federal environment minister David Anderson, another Liberal, is against the treatment plant. So is Dr. Richard Stanwick, the respected local health officer, who thinks the money would be better spent on health care.

But Martin's stand contradicts that of his own party's boss. Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has been calling on Victoria for two years now to start treating its sewage.

"I don't think it's helpful for Keith Martin to be fighting a rearguard action on this against his own leader," Penner said.

With the province now insisting that Victoria get on with cleaning up its act, watch for this fight to intensify, especially over where the treatment plant -- or plants -- will be built.

NDP MLA Maurine Karagianis has already vowed to fight any attempt to build the plant in her riding of Esquimalt, a Victoria suburb and the rumoured favoured location.

"Not in my back yard," moans Penner, who just toured a brand-new sewage-treatment plant in Washington state that he said is so clean and odour-free, there are $1-million condos being built right beside it.

That won't convince the folks back home who are already raising a stink over his plans.

Do we need a sewage treatment plant ? by Dr Keith Martin M.P.

 

Published in the Times Colonist 6th December 2007.

When emotions drive public policy at the expense of fact and science, people suffer. There are few better examples of this than the issue of whether or not Victoria should have a new, liquid sewage treatment plan. An effective lobby effort has convinced many Victorians to support such an initiative. But would this proposal improve our environment and be an effective use of the taxpayer’s money?

It is estimated that a plant to treat what we flush down our sinks and toilets will cost around $1.2 billion. The cost will be shared by the federal government, province and municipalities, but will add several hundred dollars to every Victorian’s tax bill for many years to come. A liquid waste treatment plant has its own environmental costs, and even tertiary treatment will not remove the cancer causing substances we find in our oceans. Also, it is important to realize that a liquid waste treatment plant will not only have, at best, a marginal effect on our oceans, but will certainly draw resources away from the projects we need here at home that will improve our environment. In my view, we will regret the day we let this proposal go through if we do not do due diligence today.

Some facts: our current method of disposing liquid waste (ie: what goes down our toilets and sinks) is very effective and environmentally sound. At present, liquid waste goes through two long tunnels where it passes through six millimetre screens before then passing through long diffusers that discharge the effluent 1 km off our coast and 60 metres under the ocean’s surface. What is discharged is actually 99.9% water. The heavy metals and pharmaceuticals in our oceans that are a hazard, come from irresponsible individuals who dump solid waste (garbage) directly into our oceans, into our broken storm sewer system, and into sinks or toilets. Our current method of disposing of liquid waste is equal to secondary treatment and it is worth repeating that heavy metals/pharmaceuticals are not removed even by tertiary treatment plants. The best way for these dangerous substances not to get into our environment is source control. That is to educate people not to dump them down the sewer, toilet, sink or directly into the ocean. It makes more sense for us to increase public education to stop dumping toxic waste into our environment and provide people with an easy, and environmentally friendly way to dispose of these products.

The pollution we see at our shoreline, particularly after a storm, comes from our broken storm sewer system that leaks this material along our coast. This debris we see at the water’s edge is not from the discharge (which is 99.9% water) that comes out of our outfalls in the strait of Juan de Fuca.

A wiser use of tax dollars to improve our environment would be for the three levels of government to work together to: repair our storm sewers; build a light rail transit system from Victoria to the Westshore; and get the E&N Railway running in the right direction at the right time (estimated cost for infrastructure upgrades for the E&N is $60 million). These three initiatives would be an effective use of our tax dollars and will have an enormous, positive effect on our environment.

Lastly, a land-based treatment plant creates its own environmental damage. The sludge that is extracted has to be deposited somewhere or used. This will entail transporting the sludge via greenhouse gas emitting trucks and then depositing it on land. Currently, what organic matter flows out of the outfalls in the strait is food for the creatures that live in the sea. It is no secret that the area near the outfalls is a very productive fishing spot.

Before we go any further with a sewage plant, the facts must come out. A costbenefit analysis must be done, and the public must be aware of all of the facts so that rational, responsible decisions can be made in the public interest. Anything less will be a failure.

The bill for sewage treatment is more than $1 billion, the benefits are unknown

David Anderson, Special to Times Colonist. Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Some time ago the provincial government asked the Capital Regional District to prepare a plan for the treatment of Greater Victoria's liquid waste. The CRD presented a draft plan to the government earlier this year.

The cost of a treatment plan and associated systems was estimated at $1.1 billion. There was no detailed analysis of the benefits that would result. We therefore have a cost estimate but not a cost/benefit analysis of the proposal, as the provincial government's own guidelines require.

A capital expenditure of $1.1 billion translates to an annual increase in taxation for every core area residence of between $500 and $700 per year. While there has been optimistic talk of contributions from the provincial and federal governments to offset part of this, the likelihood of a public/private partnership makes substantial senior government contributions unlikely.

In any event, total costs are important. It is not reasonable to argue that taxpayers should consider only the taxes they pay to one of the three levels of government and ignore the other two.

Value for tax expenditures brings us back to the issue of benefits.

Surely, given the size of the annual tax expenditure, it is up to the CRD and provincial government to show that the benefits of the proposed expenditure will be at least of equal value to the costs, and to show that alternatives have been explored.

Not all living in Greater Victoria are wealthy. Such an expenditure would make housing less affordable for seniors on fixed incomes, for young families and for the working poor. It would worsen the already serious low-income housing problem. If we are to further disadvantage the least financially able in our community, it is surely reasonable to ask for a detailed, careful and dispassionate analysis of what benefits there might be.

This responsibility must be taken seriously. For the past two decades citizens have been told by the CRD and provincial authorities that the current waste-water disposal system was effective, that the source control system was working to keep toxic substances out of the waste stream and that on-land treatment had higher costs (both economic and environmental) than were justified.

A year ago the CRD spent some $600,000 for a Florida professional association to investigate the issue, and their report concluded that there was no compelling environmental reason to embark on major changes at this time.

Now the CRD and provincial government have changed their position. If they have different information to support this change, they should provide this to the public.

This is not a question of environment versus economics. Rather it is a straightforward question of good public administration and good public policy. Effective decision-making depends on adequate knowledge of costs and results. That knowledge should go beyond the dollars and cents issue. What is needed is analysis based on the triple bottom line of the economic, social and environmental issues involved. We can't get such analysis if we do not have the facts, and the facts are missing.

Public policy decisions frequently involve competing environmental priorities. Another CRD report of a few weeks ago concerned storm-drain runoff, rainwater that washes oil and other contaminants off the streets and gardens, into storm drains and then out to sea.

This problem would not be handled by the proposed $1.1-billion expenditure. Yet in terms of negative environmental impact to our shores and marine environment, the contaminants in the runoff water from storm drains almost certainly has a greater negative environmental impact than those associated with the wastewater flowing through the current outfall system.

But how can the two problems and the costs of handling them be effectively compared if the CRD and provincial government fail to provide the information on which their decision to choose one and ignore the other was based?

Surface runoff is but one of the many local issues in the environmental field that require our consideration.

Effective decisions call for accurate and adequate information. On the Greater Victoria waste-water issue, so far the citizens of our community have had neither.

David Anderson is a former member of Parliament and MLA for capital region ridings. He was environment minister in both the Chretien and Martin governments and is now the director of the Guelph Institute of the Environment at the University of Guelph.

Civic leaders question sewage treatment costs

 

Jeff Bell, Times Colonist. Published: Thursday, November 01, 2007

Many capital region residents continue to question plans for a sewage-treatment system that could cost in the range of $1.2 billion, say members of a local citizens' group. Former B.C. cabinet minister Mel Couvelier, real-estate agent Bob Wheaton and University of Victoria health economist Rebecca Warburton told the Times Colonist editorial board yesterday that a significant groundswell of dissent remains over the need to spend such a large amount of money on processing the region's sewage.

Environment Minister Barry Penner announced in late July that "the scales have now tipped" in favour of sewage treatment in the CRD, which is one of North America's few urban centres that dumps its sewage into the ocean. The federal government has indicated it will pay one-third of the cost of secondary sewage treatment, according to local politicians.

In September, John Baird -- Penner's federal counterpart -- said Ottawa has plans to spend billions of dollars over the next seven years in support of new national standards to prevent the dumping of raw sewage into the country's waterways. Baird called Victoria's sewage situation "an important priority." At present, 129 million litres of waste pass through outfall screens each day before entering Juan de Fuca Strait.

Couvelier said he and others want to ensure that whatever is spent on sewage concerns is put to its best use. "My sense of it is that the two senior governments are determined to put some money to this issue, and it's almost tilting at windmills to fight it. So the issue, in my mind, then becomes let's make damn sure the money is well spent."

Warburton said none of the planning to date looks at key issues such as toxic materials entering the sewage system or the need to fix the region's faulty storm drains. Couvelier said the existing storm drains were overburdened by last winter's rains, leading to 41 discharges of raw sewage onto local beaches.

"We're certainly not suggesting that nothing be done," said Wheaton. "We're not suggesting that what is being done is perfect. What we're suggesting is that there may be far less expensive alternatives to perfecting what we're doing, rather than going to this knee-jerk, land-based treatment system which will require huge capital, huge operating costs, huge expenditures of energy forever."

He said our natural systems -- such as cold, fast-flowing ocean water -- have a certain capacity to deal with sewage. "We have this wonderful chemistry set out there called the Strait of Juan de Fuca."

Also part of the group questioning the direction of the sewage debate are several business and academic luminaries. Included among the signatories of a letter being circulated by the group are Dr. Shaun Peck, former deputy medical health officer for B.C., University of Victoria dean of science Tom Pedersen and a number of other UVic faculty members, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin and engineer Ted Dew-Jones.

Estimates escalate for Victoria sewage plan, and it's early days yet.

Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun - July 14, 2007

VICTORIA - Environment Minister Barry Penner admits he was taken aback earlier this summer when he received the updated sewage treatment plan for the provincial capital region.
Penner had commissioned the update a year ago, when he announced that the Capital Regional District would have to end the practice of pumping untreated sewage through ocean outfalls.
He also committed the provincial government to sharing one-third of the cost of secondary treatment, along with the federal and regional governments.
When he made the announcement, Penner was proceeding from estimates provided by the regional authorities, suggesting the project would cost in the order of $400 million to $500 million.
But that costing was as raw and untreated as the sewage. In a report delivered to Penner at the end of June, the revised capital cost is said to be $1.2 billion and, depending on the options, could readily be higher. "I was disappointed," Penner told me this week, inadvertently capturing how many people were feeling about the week's news regarding his government's handling of the convention centre budget. But the environment minister brushed aside any possibility that the rapidly escalating cost could provide an opening to postpone sewage treatment for another generation or two. He's noted a rearguard action by some residents of the capital region: "There are still some people dug in, saying that the status quo is fine."
Penner says they are wasting their time: "It is a reality that sewage treatment is required here." Treatment is supported by science he says, noting that a ministry study found contaminants near the outfalls. "They" -- meaning those opposed to secondary treatment -- "said it was fine. It was not fine. It failed our standards." Treatment is also required by law. "Even oil and gas exploration camps that are temporary have to treat their sewage," the environment minister said. "Victoria has been granted an exemption for many years but Victoria's time is come. The decision is made."
Next step will see his ministry reviewing the plan from the Capital Regional District, shooting back some questions, trying to work out the answers.
He also thinks the cost estimate "needs to be tested some more," given the way it has more than doubled in a year. The B.C. Liberals continue to hope that the cost can be reduced, through innovative methods of treatment and some form of public-private partnership.
The regional district has commissioned a $300,000 assessment of the prospects for private sector involvement in the project. Other aspects of the project are far from decided. The current plan
calls for treatment to be spread over five and possibly six sites in the region, each of which comes with its own menu of possible controversies.
And since one of those sites is not far from the end of my street, some of those controversies hit pretty close to home. The regional district has shelled out almost $500,000 for a consulting firm to try to sort out issues with each of the sites and recommend the final selections.
For now, the preferred location for the main primary and secondary treatment plant is on land owned by the department of national defence in Esquimalt. The regional district has entered into talks about acquiring the seven-hectare site, and is also consulting a local native band that has its own interests in the land. Decisions on sites and treatment methods will be delivered at the end of 2008, which by an amazing coincidence is a month after the next round of civic elections.
Then . . . well, the regional district has set a goal having secondary treatment up and running by Dec 31, 2016. And even that somewhat distant completion date is subject to "land acquisition and capital costs." Penner mused during the interview whether "that's too long." I advised him that we take our own sweet time doing things here in the capital, and 9 1/2 years may turn out to be excessively ambitious. He sighed. But however the details turn out, the province remains on the hook for its one-third share of the project, according to Penner. The federal government recently reiterated its commitment to a third as well, though Ottawa would probably deduct the value of the defence department land from any cash contribution. That would leave local ratepayers on the hook for the other third. "It is too early to speculate on the cost for an individual household," the regional district says, leaving that reckoning for another day.
But it could easily add $500 a year to the average property tax bill. Capital residents once rejected sewage treatment via referendum, but they aren't likely to get that chance again. With the province insisting treatment is required by law, it is also looking at a way to impose the capital cost on the regional without a referendum.

Retired engineer challenges sewage treatment proposal

By Ted Dew-Jones - News Group papers - May 18 2007 - Guest Comment

Reading the report about our long sewage outfalls by the Society of Environmental Technology and Chemistry, I recognize my 1945 wartime degree in engineering from Manchester University does not provide me with the sophisticated level of education needed to understand it.

The SETAC report concludes "...the benefits of treatment cannot be described or calculated with any precision. This observation does not mean that the benefits of treatment would be insignificant." So the report's authors did not conclude that lack of treatment would c ause serious damage, as I would have presumed was needed to warrant spending over $1 billion; it did not even conclude that the damage would be significant.

All we have is the double negative, thus committing SETAC to nothing and committing us to paying the taxes. Most of their conclusion is about what will be popular. Popularity therefore must have been a major reason for their recommendation that treatment be considered.

Why has no one challenged that? Thus they view it as likely that a benefit-cost study would find treatment justified on the presumption that the "benefits perceived by the majority would exceed the costs they perceive." I had naively thought the purpose of a technical report was to replace perceptions by facts.

They note that the only time the public were asked their opinion, they rejected building a land-based treatment plant and then they add "due to changed circumstances decision makers should assume this may no longer be the case."

Who says so? What has that do to with a technical report? The report states that "when the diluted plume does come to the surface persons exposed to the water are at increased risk of adverse health effects."

Anyone who has studied the extensive research about health risks from swimming in the sea will tell you that the risk of illness from discharges a mile offshore into bitterly cold water at a depth of 200 feet is negligible. There is much in the report about public health but it makes no mention of such research. It is as though this is the world's first look at the problem.

The impact of sewage, massively diluted after rising through 200 feet of water, is mentioned. What is not mentioned is the impact at a sewage treatment plant of the aerosols immediately above the aeration tanks where air is bubbling up furiously through maybe 20 feet of raw sewage.

Is that a health risk to operators or nearby residents? It used to be thought not but recent research is troubling (Google "sewage treatment plants" and "aerosols"). However small it may or may not be, it is patent that the health risk at a treatment plant is massively greater that the risk a mile offshore. SETAC obviously knows all about sewage treatment plants so it is a mystery.

There is much literature in professional engineering journals about the adverse impacts of land-based treatment exceeding the adverse impact of the raw screened sewage discharge, which is why many have deduced that the net effect of providing such treatment in a case like ours will be to do harm.

In other words, land treatment should not be provided even if it were free. The SETAC scientists do not reject such arguments; they simply ignore them. See them on the website of my book ([12] http://nisoftware.com/sewage-circus ). I mention just one here. Is the impact of five kilograms of mercury on the sea bed a mile offshore, locked into a molecular form from which it cannot escape, greater than the impact of exhaust from construction equipment carrying out work equivalent to building 12,000 $100,000 houses?

If you thought mercury pollution mattered, compare our five kilograms per annum with Emory Creek, where mercury was used hundreds of pounds at a time. You will find it on the Internet. That is only one of numerous abandoned gold mine sites in B.C.

How is it that a world renowned director of the Institute of Ocean Sciences at Patricia Bay could come to Victoria 16 years ago and lecture on why Victoria did not need a sewage treatment plant and yet we do not now know that individual's view on the SETAC report?

At their own cost and after an immense labour, a group of local scientists and a retired medical health officer have now examined every reason ever advanced for building a land-based plant and discounted them all ( www.rstv.ca ). This quite accords with the views of local scientists and medical health officers over the last 30 years.

The last paragraph of the SETAC report states "...a potential approach might be to install treatment." Not exactly Churchillian, is it? How can such a sentence override the views of our own scientists?

Rumour has it that the real reason for pushing a land-based treatment plant was because of nasty comments in the Seattle Times and the impact on tourists. The benefit from such tourists is dubious. The real impact on our local economy would be from the lack of purchasing power of people following the huge tax bite to pay for land-treatment and plant operation. The rent still has to be paid!

I confess I view the matter as a moral issue and believe that to divert over $1 billion from other needs to achieve a negative result would be to bring shame on this community.

Ted Dew-Jones, is a retired professional engineer who lives in Victoria.

Politics trumps science in the debate over Victoria sewage

Craig McInnes, Vancouver Sun. Published: Thursday, May 17, 2007

VICTORIA - Mr. Floatie has been retired, but taxpayers in Victoria will be reminded of his antics for decades to come.

Mr. Floatie is the name adopted by James Skwarok, an environmental activist who has been dressing up in a brown -- yes, that brown -- furry suit and dogging local politicians over the past couple of years to demand a new sewage treatment system for Victoria.

As much as anyone, Mr. Floatie is responsible for building the bandwagon on this issue that the provincial government finally jumped aboard last summer.

Thanks to Mr. Floatie, the debate over whether Victoria's sewage needs treatment finally turned on political rather than scientific evidence.

For decades, environmentalists and neighboring communities have complained about the fact that Victoria "dumps raw sewage" into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Finally, Mr. Floatie's persistent demonstrations and the emergence of the environment as a big political issue persuaded the province to force the Capital Regional District to come up with a plan to end the practice.

The province and the federal government have even put their money behind their demands, promising to split costs so that local municipalities will only have to pick up a third of the tab, estimated this spring to be $1.2 billion. That is more than double earlier estimates, but still likely much less than the final bill.

Flushed with success, Mr. Floatie has moved onto a new cause. He now campaigns as CO2 man.

Despite all that inertia and the funds committed to the sewage treatment project, the debate continues over whether this will be money well spent. A rearguard action being waged against the proposed system is coming from what might be considered an unlikely source.

Dr. Shaun Peck retired as deputy provincial health officer three years ago. Now he is the volunteer spokes-man for a group of local academics and health professionals who have set up a website -- rstv.ca -- to martial opposition to building an expensive new sewage treatment system.

Their arguments boil down to the premise that, from a scientific point of view, it is a multibillion-dollar solution for which there is no problem.

"This is a huge expenditure," Peck says. "I feel a sense of duty to get the message out there that there is no good scientific reason for putting in this system."

The sewage flowing into the strait is not actually raw, he says, since the big floaty bits are filtered out, and the swift-moving salt water creates a natural treatment system that renders it harmless.

The scientific panel commissioned by the Capital Regional District came to roughly the same conclusion based on the science, yet it recommended last summer that the project "would be prudent public policy in line with the expression of public preferences."

Why should a scientific panel consider non-scientific concerns? It looks like it was the only way to justify its earlier, unsupported thesis that "relying on the dilution of natural dispersion processes of the Strait of Juan de Fuca is not a long-term answer to wastewater disposal."

Yet when the scientists went looking for damaging effects from the millions of litres of waste now being pumped into the Strait, this is what they concluded:

"The science is not sufficiently well developed to state with certainty whether or not harmful health or ecological consequences are likely to result from the continuing discharge of screened sewage . . . ."

So will spending $1.2 billion, or whatever the final sum, make a difference?

Again from the report: "There is no completely objective way in which to balance the costs of enhanced treatment with the risks of maintaining the present pre-treatment and screening program." In other words, since we can't say that there is a problem now, we can't say whether spending more than a billion dollars will fix it.

Still, if it will keep Mr. Floatie and the other critics happy, what's the harm?

The harm is in the other things that won't be done as a result of the money being plowed into the sewage treatment project -- the hospitals, the public transit, the development of parks.

Finally, the harm comes from the damage done to the credibility of politicians who claim to make environmental decisions based on science, but who demonstrate that political pressure is still the best way to get their attention.

cmcinnes@png.canwest.com

Land-based treatment has costs beyond money - A sewage plant creates environmental hazards with little proven benefit.

Comments - John Bergbush - Times Colonist - May 07, 2007

Reporter Rob Shaw's "Why we don't have a choice about treating sewage" (April 8) suggests legal enforcement will be based on provincial contaminated-sites and federal fisheries and environment legislation. That could only be pure speculation at this time.

This is a fact: The provincial minister of environment, in accordance with section 24(3)(a) of the Environmental Management Act, has directed the Capital Regional District board to submit to him for approval no later than June 30, 2007, an amendment to the CRD Core Area Liquid Waste Management Plan detailing a fixed schedule for the provision of sewage treatment.

With regard to the contaminated- sites regulations, information from chemical oceanographers has determined that the elevated levels of such heavy metals as zinc, mercury, copper and cadmium are also present (in similar quantities) in ocean sediments in areas where there are no deep sea outfalls -- such as in Saanich Inlet and Ucluelet Inlet.

This is because ocean sediments that have high organic matter loading absorb metals and other substances from the small quantities that occur naturally in sea water. It would therefore be unreasonable to blame Victoria's sewage effluent a priori for levels found in the ocean floor.

There has got to be better evidence than we have to date to apply the contaminated-sites regulation.

It is ironic that while the regulation might be used by minister Barry Penner to club Victoria into compliance, it's the municipal sewage regulations that actually govern sewage treatment, and those don't include restrictions on heavy metals.

For years the federal government has threatened to use the federal Fisheries Act (whose consideration is "deleterious to fish or fish habitat or to the use by man of fish that frequent that water") to require increased sewage treatment. The province has rightfully insisted that a 100-metre dilution zone be allowed before this was applied. The Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment has now agreed that this is reasonable.

Let us remember we need to pay attention to climate change.

What is new today is a much greater public awareness and government's intent to take action on climate change. This is relevant to the development of the proposed $1.2-billion sewage treatment plants, compared with Victoria's present natural sewage treatment.

The present treatment is through the two deep ocean discharges (60 metres below the ocean surface) at Macaulay and Clover points after screening through six-millimetre screens and a comprehensive source control program that prevents unwanted chemicals from entering the sewage effluent.

It might be the thinking behind this government legislation is 20 years out of date -- that there is something good about land-based sewage treatment plants irrespective of the receiving environment. As one legal expert has said: "Laws reflect the trends in society -- they do not lead the trends in society."

Land-based treatment plants will have a significant environmental impact, including the destruction of natural habitat, production of greenhouse gases, and all the energy needed for making concrete, operating the plants and running many pumps.

There will be emissions from the daily five to eight sludge-hauling trucks, and there will be the need to dump or treat the 1,000 (dry) tonnes per year of toxic sludge created by the plants.

If the impact of land-based sewage treatment plants is taken into account by lawmakers in the revision of and application of existing legislation, they would allow solutions based on sound research into the true nature of the threat of all these environmental effects.

Land-based sewage treatment plants will not be more effective in protecting the environment than the current natural treatment system (preliminary sewage treatment, long deep sea outfalls and source controls).

There will also be zero cost benefit to spending $1.2 billion because no clear marine environmental or public health benefit has yet been established.

- John Bergbush is a former mayor of Colwood and member of the Capital Regional District board.

Costly and contentious, capital region's sewage plan will stumble ahead

Vaughn Palmer Vancouver Sun April 11, 2007

VICTORIA - When the federal and provincial governments agreed to help pay for sewage treatment in the provincial capital last year, they did so without knowing what the promise would cost taxpayers. The ballpark number -- $500 million, split three ways -- was derived from a report from the Capital Regional District. But that was so far off the mark as to be grossly misleading. Today, with planning still "at a very early stage," the regional district estimates the project will cost three times as much. That's $1.5 billion. The provincial and federal governments on the hook for half a billion dollars each, local government to cover the rest. Still, senior governments say they're in. "Unequivocally," says federal cabinet minister Gary Lunn, whose riding is in the capital region. "It's something in our fiscal framework." Provincial Environment Minister Barry Penner likewise says, "we have not withdrawn our support," and he could scarcely do otherwise. It was his government that last summer rang the alarm bells about rising pollution levels at the capital's sewage outfalls and ordered the regional district to get cracking on a treatment plan. His only caveat is that local government review the project as a public-private partnership as a way of maybe minimizing further cost inflation during the construction stage. As for the communities that will be stuck with the remaining third of the bill, local leaders are trying to lowball the impact on property taxes. The current projection sees an average hike of about $500 a year. For comparison, the city of Victoria calculates this year's increase in property taxes at four per cent, or $62 on average. On that basis, sewage treatment would boost a typical property tax bill in the capital city by almost one-third. Some lowballing. Not surprisingly, these numbers have revived the longstanding debate over whether sewage treatment is a good use of public funds.

David Anderson, Victoria's MP for many years, used to enrage environmentalists with his opposition, the more so because he was so green on other issues, like offshore oil and gas exploration. But he believed the need wasn't all that pressing, given the relative lack of non-organic pollutants in the city sewage and the flushing action of the nearby ocean. "Should we really be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on something that may not yet be needed?" Anderson asked again recently. Those scarce government dollars would "buy a lot of health care ... you could bring drinking water to stricken aboriginal communities."

But in practical terms there's probably no going back. The province ordered treatment based on its own scientific assessment. Ottawa is concerned as well. There's also the overriding concern about tourism, particularly from south of the border where the B.C. capital's presumption has long generated outrage. I recently addressed a service club in Bellingham and when I brought up Victoria's promise to begin treating its sewage, the audience response was overwhelmingly "it is about time." The more likely course of action will see governments dragging this thing out well beyond the current time frame. Planning, at this early stage, projects 2013 as the "midpoint" of construction. The latest discussion paper offers five options -- with as many as five treatment plants -- each version having a rich potential for controversy.

Partly this reflects the challenge of bringing sewage treatment to a spread-out community where the available sites are already claimed as residential neighbourhoods or parkland. For instance, the planners concluded that the pumping station and outfall in Esquimalt would be a good place to locate one of the major treatment facilities. Understandably, Esquimalt council does not agree. But as Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard said when asked if his municipality was prepared to accept one of the proposed plants: "Pick a neighbourhood in any community and people are going to think of a better reason for it to be to put it somewhere else. But you can't have sewage treatment without sewage plants."

Right you are, your worship, and I'm still thinking it will take the capital region's squabbling municipalities many months to accept the inevitable and several years to get on with construction. Did I mention that another of the potential sites is at Clover Point, not far from my backyard? I wouldn't campaign against it, but my neighbours could be another matter. Construction there might also mean cutting into an adjacent city park. In any event, the regional district is scheduled to serve up its preliminary plan by June 30. Then begins the real battle over sites, systems and costs. Senior governments can expect to be excused from writing those hefty cheques for some time to come.

Could More Treatment be a waste of Money ?

Commentary - Times Colonist - Dr Shaun Peck - March 25th 2007

Will land-based sewage treatment really be more effective than the current ocean treatment? Will there be a cost-benefit from additional sewage treatment ? Is the "triple bottom line" approach (giving equal weight to the economic, social and environmental issues) being applied fairly to all options for effective, environmentally sound sewage treatment ? Enthusiasm for additional sewage treatment has been voiced clearly by the Victoria Sewage Alliance and the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, in favour of large land-based engineered treatment works. There is a general belief by many elected officials and the public that it is needed. However most scientists who have examined the present practice of deep sea ocean discharge cannot find the evidence of need for more treatment. The planned land-based treatment works will need significant acreage. Heat, bio-solids, oils and metals and other materials could be recovered from the sewage effluent. All this will come at a significant cost to the taxpayers. The final costs of the proposed land-based treatment are unknown, but the estimate is $1.2 billion.

The Victoria core area sewage, which is really 99.93 per cent water and very little actual solids, is discharged from two deep ocean outfalls more than a kilometre from the shore, after first passing through six-millimetre screens. There are no "floaties." At the end of the outfalls the effluent passes through diffusers that are 200 metres long and 60 metres below the surface of the ocean. Most of the year, the effluent plume is dispersed well below sea level. In the winter months, the effluent plume, diluted by 1,600 times before it reaches the surface, surfaces only 4.8 per cent of the time at the Macaulay outfall and 1.7 per cent at Clover Point.

Occasional bacterial tests have detected this diluted plume. But there is no evidence that it represents a public health risk -- based on a comprehensive study of potential human exposure. While many Victorians might not be aware or might not agree, the current method of disposal of our liquid waste is highly effective environmentally and economically and has not been shown in several studies to produce any significant measurable effects on the environment. There is evidence of metals and other chemicals in the ocean sediments that might have arisen from many sources, including Victoria's long historical practice of dumping garbage from barges into the ocean, shipwrecks (a coal barge sank off Brotchie Ledge) and from other sources, including storm drains, and migrating harbour pollution.

There will be a significant environmental impact from land-based treatment plants. This will include the destruction of natural habitat, production of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, and all the energy needed for making concrete, operating the plants, running many pumps and the sludge-hauling trucks and so on. Land-based treatment will not be more effective in protecting the environment than the current treatment system (preliminary sewage treatment , long deep sea outfalls and source controls). There will be zero cost benefit because no clear marine or land environmental or public health benefit has yet been established.

If the triple bottom line approach is used and as a "base-case" includes comparison with the current ocean discharge, together with comparison of the opportunity costs, it is likely that continuing the ocean discharge would be a clear winner. The otherwise wasted sewage plant funding could be allocated for pressing regional priorities of health care, homelessness, transportation and climate change.

Whatever the outcome of the current planning, it is important to continue and to improve the successful source control program preventing unwanted chemicals and grease from entering the sewage effluent, to continue watching for significant harm to the environment or possible public health effects, to conserve water (thus reducing the disposal problem) and to prevent the beach contamination that occurs when there are storm water drains that overflow directly onto our shorelines in the winter months.

Before the final commitment of the promised funds from the provincial and federal governments and funds from the municipal property taxes for land-based sewage treatment for Victoria, these key questions need to be addressed. Most importantly, there must be a full, fair, and transparent environmental impact assessment of all of the sewage treatment alternatives, with our current natural sewage treatment system as the base-case scenario.

If policy makers reviewed the science and made a fair comparison they would likely conclude that the current ocean treatment was environmentally superior (particularly with regard to climate change) to large land-based treatment plants. The potential waste of taxpayer's money could be saved.

Dr. Shaun Peck was the regional medical officer of health from 1989 to 1995.

Treatment Advocates Ignore the Facts

Comment by Ted Dew-Jones, Victoria Times-Colonist, Wednesday November 1st 2006

A secondary sewage plant in Victoria might do more harm than good
Is the federal government's diktat as to what Victoria must do the last word on the subject? Not if its citizens decide that it isn't. In the final analysis the government will do whatever the public demands.
The federal government has ordered us to build a sewage treatment plant and quotes the damage done to shellfish by raw sewage, despite the fact that our long outfalls protect shellfish better than secondary plants with short outfalls.
The provincial minister says we must have treatment -- and the premier is willing to help pay for it -- because of levels of toxins, despite the fact that the discharge of lead from the Annacis Island secondary plant into the Fraser River exceeded either of our long outfalls for the last year on record.
The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry report released in the summer states that the benefits of treatment cannot be described with any precision. In other words, they do not know if treatment is needed or not.
I have urged the minister to ask the Patricia Bay Oceanographic Institute and the university scientists for their views on the toxic chemical levels and on the SETAC report, but with no response.
How irresponsible not to publicize the opinions of the highly qualified specialists who have for more than 30 years been explaining why we do not need treatment.
Reading that report, one would presume it would end by stating we do not need to have a treatment plant, rather than the opposite. Indeed, the authors seem filled with doubt. The conclusion states that great deference is due to the expressed will of the electorate - - but the only time they have been asked they rejected treatment.
What would SETAC have recommended if they had not thought the electorate's will was important -- and anyway, what has that to do with a technical report?
The wording of the report would be just as applicable to an expenditure of $5 million as to the projected one of $500 million. The alternative benefits such a huge sum would allow are not a consideration.
The heaviest burden of increased taxes will fall on low-income renters when such a sum would allow for the construction of low- cost housing for some 10,000 people.
The lack of proportion in deciding what matters and what does not is breathtaking. The damage that would be done to our residential areas by installing treatment plants has not been a consideration.
In 1984 a British Royal Commission examined the long outfalls in the United Kingdom and deduced not simply that they were adequate but could be "better" than secondary treatment with a standard outfall.
Indeed that was why the Capital Regional District opted for them. No one would have argued if the consultants had recommended treatment and they would thereby have finished with maybe five times the fee.
The reason for the "better" is because of the significant adverse environmental impacts of building a treatment plant if one is not needed. SETAC ignores them but here is one; there are many more in Chapter 13 of my book Victoria's Sewage Circus.
The SETAC report states that pathogens can be present when the sewage plume rises to the surface. Anyone who has been in this business knows of the concern that the sewage in treatment plants can cause pathogens in aerosols. A report by Pereira and Benjaminson states that the possibility of such hazards is of special interest where the facilities are upwind of populations especially susceptible to infections, because of age.
I am not inventing this. There is lots more. Just Google "aerosols and sewage treatment plants."
So, on the one hand is a discharge of sewage diluted maybe two- hundred-fold after rising through 200 feet of bitterly cold water, which pathogens hate; on the other hand the aerosols rising from a tank of raw sewage driven up by the air forced through them.
Staff will be walking past the tanks routinely. How serious is that? I don't really know, but it is obviously much more serious than the pathogen issue that SETAC chose to mention.
Engineers have done a terrible job of explaining their work. They were the first people to examine the impact of sewage on receiving waters more than a hundred years ago and the first to develop technologies to overcome them. There is sufficient specialist literature on this topic to fill a large library.
People are going to other towns to discuss what they have done, but that is just as likely to have been because of public pressure on politicians as because it was best.
One needs to know who will provide the confidential information. I have been conducted round recycling facilities already known to be failures but they never tell you that. The truth comes out over a beer from some fed-up engineer.
It is a minefield out there and one needs to have been educated on the subject.
Ted Dew-Jones, P.Eng., is the author of Victoria's Sewage Circus, on the Internet at nisoftware.com/sewage-circus. He says this will be the last article he writes on the topic.

Little Evidence in Sewage Case

Victoria Times-Colonist Editorial July 30th 2006

Read the reports on treatment closely. There is less there, it seems, than meets the eye.
Environment Minister Barry Penner has given the Capital Regional District an ultimatum.Invoking a section of the Environmental Management Act, the minister has ordered Victoria to stop discharging untreated waste into the ocean.
Liquid sewage is piped under Juan de Fuca Strait and dispersed by ocean currents. Regional staff argue there is no danger to health, and that natural processes absorb the waste. However, Penner has rejected this long-standing approach and given local officials 12 months to come up with an alternative. Whatever persuaded the minister, he appears to have invoked the provincial equivalent of the War Measures Act.
Here is what the statute says: "Despite anything in the Community Charter or the Local Government Act ... the waste management plan (approved in this manner) does not require ... the assent ... or the approval of the electors." So local taxpayers get no say in the matter.
Moreover, if Penner disagrees with whatever alternative the CRD puts forward, he may impose his own solution. So much for bringing government closer to the people. Greater Victoria's disposal policy has been controversial since its adoption, and environmental groups have long opposed it. The issue has been fought over in numerous local elections, but without a consensus for change.
A referendum in 1992 rejected a new treatment facility. And while reams of studies have been conducted, none show measurable harm to public health. In fact, the approach might be one of those schemes that has little to recommend it -- until the alternatives are considered. Any treatment plant able to handle all of the region's waste will be large and costly.
Some estimates are in the half-billion dollar range, and while the federal government has indicated it might share part of the expense, local taxpayers face hefty bill. Even if senior governments pay half, the burden falling on CRD residents comes to about $300 per household, plus operating charges.
Where will the facility be located?
It will be in someone's backyard.
In view of these difficulties, it might be assumed Penner must have convincing evidence. Since the issue is principally a human safety matter, perhaps the minister was swayed by appeals from public health officials?
Well, no. The CRD's chief medical health officer, Dr. Richard Stanwick, did indeed write to the ministry on the subject, but it was to oppose sewage treatment. According to Stanwick, "sewage treatment would result in no measurable change to the health of the residents of the CRD."
And he concluded there were much better ways to spend half a billion dollars. With that kind of money, the Vancouver Island Health Authority could carry out its entire building program in the region, including a major hospital expansion and new long-term care beds. In making the announcement, Penner said the deciding factor was a couple of recent scientific reviews. Carried out respectively by Environment Ministry staff and consultants hired by the CRD, the studies looked at various aspects of Victoria's liquid waste- management program.
At first appearance, the reports certainly seem to offer Penner the outcome he is pushing. But look a little closer, and a different picture emerges. The study conducted by the ministry found contamination of sea-floor sediments in the vicinity of the discharge points. That's not in itself cause for immediate alarm. The question is, has this contamination spread more than a small distance or somehow caused health problems unnoticed by the medical community? The report provides no evidence this has happened.
The CRD-funded review was more extensive. The authors note windsurfers off the Victoria shoreline sometimes report facial stinging, while killer whales in the region show higher than normal levels of contaminants.
And contrary to prior belief, discharged wastewater sometimes rises to the ocean surface. Both reports suggest improvements in monitoring.
Yet when the authors of the CRD report looked for evidence of harm to human or marine health, the findings were meagre. Specifically, while orcas do show heightened levels of PCB contamination, "the CRD is not a significant contributor."
What about threats to the ocean food chain? Those measured by ongoing studies are "negligible," though again, wider monitoring is recommended.
Contamination of sea-floor sediments? "No reason to suggest concentrations are changing over time." Risk from new chemical substances? "Minimal," although the risk "cannot be discounted."
Well, surely there are some benefits from treating sewage? Here the CRD's consultants venture into the political sphere. Such a decision would be "evidence of global citizenship." The minister owes local taxpayers a stronger justification than he has offered so far. An argument can be made that times have changed, and the lack of treatment hurts B.C.'s image as a tourist destination.
Of course, that would alter the rationale and perhaps force the provincial government to stop pushing costs onto local residents. If that's what is going on here -- a sophisticated game of pass-the- buck -- CRD council members should take note.
That would look as much like politics as science.