- JUDY BROWNOFF TO RUN FOR CRD BOARD CHAIR
- WE NEED VISION TO AVOID WASTING OUR WASTE
- FLUSH TRACKER - WORLD TOILET DAY WEBSITE
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ARESST: While San Diego has very adequate primary sewage treatment (together with very long outfalls), the major issue has been that activists sued to get the EPA to demand that San Diego build and operate unnecessary secondary stage sewage treatment.
SAN DIEGO DOES TREAT ITS SEWAGE
Letters
Dianne Grimmer
Times Colonist
December 07, 2010
(Letters to editor: letters@timescolonist.com)
A letter-writer compares the ocean currents off Victoria to those of San Diego and suggests the region rethink its plan to treat sewage ("Chance to rethink sewage treatment," Dec. 5).
A quick check of San Diego websites finds at least two main wastewater treatment plants and another six or so satellite plants and pumping stations. San Diego proudly treats sewage and uses extensive regular testing of the surrounding waters to ensure purity. San Diego doesn't appear to present a good argument against sewage treatment. Quite the opposite.
In respect of the possible smell mentioned by some previous writers, in the 1970s my family and I toured the Iona treatment plant in the Lower Mainland. The plant is still active today, serving 600,000 persons, according to its website.
I have a vivid memory of the last moment of the tour. Our guide drank the water spewing out after treatment to demonstrate how pure it is. There was no smell -- the place was as sterile as a hospital. It's now three decades since that tour and a safe assumption that the technology has greatly advanced. Victoria can expect a clean, non-smelling facility.
As shown in Vancouver and Calgary, heat energy and solid-waste fertilizer can generate income. The benefits for Victoria would not only be in an improved world-image as suggested by the letter-writer, they would be financial as well.
Dianne Grimmer
Nanaimo
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=6b9de0fc-f2ae-4110-95b7-e04423702f37
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JUDY BROWNOFF TO RUN FOR CRD BOARD CHAIR
CFAX 1070
Dec 6, 2010
(Contact: cfax.news@chumradio.com)
- FLUSH TRACKER - WORLD TOILET DAY WEBSITE
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ARESST: While San Diego has very adequate primary sewage treatment (together with very long outfalls), the major issue has been that activists sued to get the EPA to demand that San Diego build and operate unnecessary secondary stage sewage treatment.
SAN DIEGO DOES TREAT ITS SEWAGE
Letters
Dianne Grimmer
Times Colonist
December 07, 2010
(Letters to editor: letters@timescolonist.com)
A letter-writer compares the ocean currents off Victoria to those of San Diego and suggests the region rethink its plan to treat sewage ("Chance to rethink sewage treatment," Dec. 5).
A quick check of San Diego websites finds at least two main wastewater treatment plants and another six or so satellite plants and pumping stations. San Diego proudly treats sewage and uses extensive regular testing of the surrounding waters to ensure purity. San Diego doesn't appear to present a good argument against sewage treatment. Quite the opposite.
In respect of the possible smell mentioned by some previous writers, in the 1970s my family and I toured the Iona treatment plant in the Lower Mainland. The plant is still active today, serving 600,000 persons, according to its website.
I have a vivid memory of the last moment of the tour. Our guide drank the water spewing out after treatment to demonstrate how pure it is. There was no smell -- the place was as sterile as a hospital. It's now three decades since that tour and a safe assumption that the technology has greatly advanced. Victoria can expect a clean, non-smelling facility.
As shown in Vancouver and Calgary, heat energy and solid-waste fertilizer can generate income. The benefits for Victoria would not only be in an improved world-image as suggested by the letter-writer, they would be financial as well.
Dianne Grimmer
Nanaimo
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=6b9de0fc-f2ae-4110-95b7-e04423702f37
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JUDY BROWNOFF TO RUN FOR CRD BOARD CHAIR
CFAX 1070
Dec 6, 2010
(Contact: cfax.news@chumradio.com)
IT'S OFFICIAL, SAANICH COUNCILLOR, JUDY BROWNOFF IS RUNNING FOR CHAIR OF THE CAPITAL REGIONAL DISTRICT. THERE HAD BEEN SPECULATION SHE WOULD. SHE MADE THE ANNOUNCEMENT ON CFAX 1070 WITH STEPHEN ANDREW
"I have a few more people to call, but my sense was from messages I had, was yes, I will be running for CRD Board Chair"
BROWNOFF IS ALSO CHAIR OF THE SEWAGE TREATMENT COMMITTE OF THE CRD. ELECTIONS WILL BE HELD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.
http://www.cfax1070.com/newsstory.php?newsId=16455
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WE NEED VISION TO AVOID WASTING OUR WASTE (Andrew Weaver opinion)
Greater Victoria should consider burning trash to generate energy
Andrew Weaver
Special to Times Colonist
December 07, 2010
(Letters to editor: letters@timescolonist.com)
On Sunday the Times Colonist dedicated much of the Monitor section to a report how we treat our municipal solid waste. The Hartland landfill has apparently served the region well for some time. But it's now becoming full.
The Capital Regional District is beginning to explore various options on what to do next. It's not alone.
Across the water, Metro Vancouver recently completed an extensive process aimed at answering the same question.
Their status quo involves trucking trash more than 300 kilometres to a landfill at Cache Creek. That's like people in Toronto trucking their waste to Ottawa.
You've got to wonder how much civilization has advanced. As the Times Colonist points out, municipal garbage dumps were first created in Greece more than 2400 years ago. Surely we can do better than this.
Metro Vancouver thinks we can. It has approved a plan that includes either in-region or out-of-region waste-to-energy treatment of regional trash. This would supplement a small existing facility in Burnaby. The proposal awaits provincial approval.
In a perfect world, there would be no "waste." We would reduce or reuse more effectively, putting compost in the garden, taking packaging back to the store that sold it and dropping only the smallest amount of material into the recycle box.
We can hope to do better, but we can't ignore the responsibility to manage the waste that will, inevitably, be left over.
In fact, that management is made much easier if we instead think of "waste" as a valuable resource.
The proposed Metro Vancouver solution is already standard across Europe. The Europeans call it "thermal treatment." You burn that which would otherwise be fodder for the landfill and you use it to create energy. In Europe, they generate enough electricity for seven million homes and enough heat to pipe into 14.3 million more. I call it sensible "resource management."
This avoids the burning of fossil fuels and it makes the best use -- one last "re-use" -- out of something that might have been wasted in a landfill.
The concern, of course, is that waste-to-energy facilities generate emissions ranging from fine particles to carbon dioxide, none of which we want added to the atmosphere. We wish it weren't so. We wish there was no "waste" that needed burning.
But here's the complicated part: Conventional landfill of waste -- even if it's neutralized by mechanical biological treatment -- is much worse from an emissions standpoint.
So, what do we do? We should all be making every effort to reduce, reuse and recycle, but we can't substitute impractical optimism for responsible planning. Taking our garbage for a scenic drive and burying it in someone else's backyard seems like a dated solution. We use energy (to move the garbage) and we waste energy (by not recovering it in a local waste-to-energy facility).
Worse still, decomposing waste also emits the more potent greenhouse gas methane into the air. And even the most efficient landfill gas capture-and-burn facilities are nowhere near as effective as waste-to-energy facilities in preventing overall greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere.
We live in a carbon constrained world -- a world where the decline in available oil would be forcing a global change in energy options, even if climate change were not. In such a world, we cannot afford to throw fuel away.
Let's hope that the CRD learns from the Metro Vancouver experience. Building an in-region waste-to-energy facility will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating methane from future waste decomposition. It will generate energy and revenue. All that's left over is ash. That can be taken to Hartland, whose lifetime would be extended for many more decades.
There is neither time, nor energy, to waste.
- Andrew Weaver is a professor and Canada Research Chair in climate modelling and analysis at the University of Victoria. He was a panelist on the Metro Vancouver Future of the Region Sustainability Dialogues on Solid Waste in November 2009.
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=9809025d-aed1-4709-a30d-0b525d41044d
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FLUSH TRACKER - WORLD TOILET DAY WEBSITE TRACES SEWAGE IN FAMOUS CITIES
Website: http://www.flushtracker.com/index.php?page=start&ln=uk#
WHAT IS FLUSH TRACKER ALL ABOUT?
- FLUSH TRACKER IS AN APP DESIGNED BY DOMESTOS TO HELP RAISE AWARENESS FOR WORLD TOILET DAY ON NOVEMBER 19TH 2010.
WHAT´S WORLD TOILET DAY?
- WORLD TOILET DAY IS AN ANNUAL EVENT RUN BY THE WORLD TOILET ORGANISATION TO HELP RAISE AWARENESS OF SANITATION ISSUES CAUSED BY LACK OF ACCESS TO TOILETS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD.
WHAT DOES THE FLUSH TRACKER DO?
- THE FLUSH TRACKER TELLS YOU WHERE YOUR FLUSH GOES ONCE IT DISAPPEARS DOWN THE TOILET. IT KEEPS YOU UP TO DATE BY SENDING YOU TWO EMAILS.
IN WHICH COUNTRIES DOES IT WORK?
- FLUSH TRACKER IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE IN THE UK, IRELAND, SOUTH AFRICA AND POLAND.
HOW IS DOMESTOS INVOLVED?
- AS WELL AS HELPING PUBLICISE WORLD TOILET DAY, DOMESTOS IS ALSO ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN BUILDING AND IMPROVING TOILETS.
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