Peninsula Daily News news sources
VICTORIA — The British Columbia government has approved a regional sewage-treatment plan for Victoria that would end the discharge of raw effluent into the Strait of Juan de Fuca across from the North Olympic Peninsula.
But where the huge sewage treatment plant is built in the next decade will depend on Victoria-area politics affecting its location — now proposed at the left side of the entrance to Victoria Harbour.
In short, officials on all sides of the controversy indicate that the end to discharging screened raw sewage from two mile-long outfalls pointed at the Peninsula is at least 10 years away.
B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner on Wednesday announced approval of the regional plan to build the treatment plant on McLoughlin Point, which juts out toward the Strait and divides the entrances to Victoria and Esquimalt harbors.
“Our primary concern all along has been to get sewage treatment in place,” Penner told the Victoria Times Colonist.
“I don’t believe it’s acceptable anymore to discharge 40 billion liters [10.5 billion U.S. gallons] of raw sewage per year into the Strait of Juan de Fuca,” he added.
The only filtration of the sewage entering two outfalls extending from either side of the entrance to Victoria Harbour is done by screens that trap solids greater than a quarter-inch before the waste enters either outfall.
The outfalls discharge the screened effluent underwater, and natural currents sweep the sewage out to the Pacific Ocean.
Environmentalists on both sides of the border say the treatment should improve the marine environment and public health.
Opponents in Victoria, however, argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere, and that sewage pumped into the Strait is sufficiently diluted by water and fast-moving currents, as it has been since World War II.
Penner said the McLoughlin Point site for the treatment plant — the only one put forward by the Capital Regional District, the planning government for Victoria and 12 other municipalities on the southern end of Vancouver Island — meets the environmental criteria of the ministry, which originally mandated that secondary sewage treatment be in place by 2016.
The cost of a treatment plant at McLoughlin Point — a former oil depot — is estimated at $782 million ($739 million U.S.), with $14.5 million a year ($13.7 million U.S.) in operating costs.
Funding is to be shared by the Capital Regional District and provincial and federal governments.
The annual additional cost of sewage treatment to households in the Capital Regional District would range from $210 to $500 ($198 to $472 U.S.), depending on the municipality and cost-sharing agreements, said Capital Regional District spokesman Andy Orr.
The Capital Regional District, in addition to Victoria, includes the municipalities of Colwood, Esquimalt, Langford, Oak Bay, Saanich and View Royal.
During the past four years, the often fractious sewage committee — made up of politicians from throughout the core region — considered 112 sites and spent $13 million ($12.3 million U.S.) developing the sewage-treatment plan approved by Penner this week.
But there’s still controversy.
Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins argued again Wednesday that waterfront land at McLoughlin Point is not the best spot for secondary sewage treatment, saying alternate sites in Colwood have not been fully explored.
“This is an example of doing the wrong thing in the wrong place,” Desjardins said.
If there’s a spill, the sewage will go into the harbor, Desjardins said.
“The entrance to the harbor is one of the jewels of what we are about as a capital city.”
Mayor Dave Saunders of Colwood — west of the entrance to Esquimalt Harbour and 20 miles across the Strait from Port Angeles — said there are several potential sites on municipally owned land that could be home to the sewage-treatment plant.
The CRD said earlier that if another site can be found during the procurement process that meets all the district’s criteria, it could be considered, Saunders said.
