- CRD CALWMC MEETS 13 APRIL: AGENDA, MINUTES, REPORTS
- WHEN DID MINISTER PENNER DICTATE SEWAGE TREATMENT?
- GEORGIA STRAIT MAP - CRD OUTFALL LABLES DISAPPEAR
- GEORGIA STRAIT MAP - CRD OUTFALL LABLES DISAPPEAR
- BC CITIES MUST SPEND BILLIONS TO SAVE AGING ASSETS
- TALKS: BREAD, WATER, GLOBAL WARMING, TRASHED, SUSTAINABLE SEAS
CALWMC AGENDA, 13 APRIL, 10:30AM
5. Core Area Liquid Waste Management Project Governance
7. Motion for which Notice has been given:
- a) Motion to further investigate seismic requirements and risks from earthquake and tsunami: Director Desjardins
UVic Biology Department is hosting Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society, on April 18-19, 2011 as the 2011 Distinguished Women Scholar. Dr. Earle will present a public lecture and a research seminar.
PUBLIC LECTURE
“Sustainable Seas: the Vision, The Reality”
Monday, April 18 at 7:30 pm
Dr. Sylvia Earle is a legend in oceanography. In her pioneering PhD studies on aquatic plant life, she recognized the link between ocean flora and fauna, ocean conditions and climate. She has published extensively on biological systems, led more than 400 expeditions, and contributed engineering developments that facilitate ocean exploration. She is the National Geographic explorer-in-residence. This lecture will discuss the protection of our oceans in the broadest scale which formed the basis of her recent book, The World is Blue: How our Fate and the Ocean’s is One.
Also:
Emerging Green Builders public meeting, 13 April, showing "Trashed", a documentary about garbage, followed by discussion about the possibilities of a zero-waste society.
Film synopsis:
“Trashed” is a provocative investigation of one of the fastest growing industries in North America: the garbage business. The film examines a fundamental element of modern American culture…the disposal of what our society defines as “waste”. It is an issue influenced by every American, most of whom never consider the consequences. nor, it seems, the implications to our biosphere. At times humorous, but deeply poignant, “Trashed” examines the American waste stream fast approaching a half billion tons annually.
What are the effects all this waste will have on already strained natural resources? Why is so much of it produced? While every American creates almost 5 pounds of it every day, who is affected most? And who wants America to make more? The film analyzes the causes and effects of the seemingly innocuous act of “taking out the garbage” while showcasing the individuals, activists, corporate and advocacy groups working to affect change and reform the current model. “Trashed” is an informative and thought-provoking film everyone interested in the future of sustainability should see.
Video trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Wednesday, April 13th, 7pm-9pm
Burnside Gorge Community Centre - 471 Cecelia Road
Refreshments provided, please BYOMug
EGB Victoria Steering Committee
EGB website: http://cascadiagbc.
-----------
END.
------------------------------
5. Core Area Liquid Waste Management Project Governance
6. Correspondence
- a) 1 April 2011 Letter from David Langley re: E&Y Market Sounding Report
- a) 1 April 2011 Letter from David Langley re: E&Y Market Sounding Report
7. Motion for which Notice has been given:
- a) Motion to further investigate seismic requirements and risks from earthquake and tsunami: Director Desjardins
CALWMC MINUTES, 23 MARCH, selected items:
a) W. Dancer, re: item 7—commented on impacts to Saanich and Haro Woods in regard to
attenuation tanks and urged the Committee towards fully mitigating adverse effects.
b) B. Furber, re: item 7—commented on impacts to Haro Woods in regard to attenuation
tanks and using a slideshow, suggested re-positioning the tanks to different parcels of
land nearby and using smaller tanks to reduce the size of the necessary buffer zone.
REPORTS,13 APRIL MEETING:
Item 06 Correspondence to the Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee from Mr. David Langley
Item 05 #EWW 11-28 Core Area Liquid Waste Management Project Governance
Item 07 Previous Motion re Seismic Requirements and Risks from Earthquake and Tsunami
------------------------------
WHEN DID MINISTER PENNER DICTATE CRD LAND-BASED SEWAGE TREATMENT? HULL-VERSUS-SERVOS
Wednesday's Canadian Water Network seminar at UVic revealed a fundamental problem with Minister Penner's diktat to the CRD to build the sewage treatment plant. Jack Hull started his presentation by telling the audience that Minister Penner read the SETAC report, and then mandated the CRD to go to secondary sewage treatment. However, near the end of his keynote presentation, Dr. Mark Servos' example of a failure of science communication was that Minister Penner ordered the sewage treatment plant before reading the SETAC report. To emphasize his point, Servos showed a photo of Mr. Floatie being interviewed by the media (attached).
ARESST members Shaun Peck and Jack Littlepage attended and were able to network with presenters and audience, and thanks to the generosity and effort of Elizabeth Woodworth, we were able to distribute copies of the two Marine Pollution Bulletin letters to the audience of about 30 graduate students and faculty. Saanich Councillor and member of CRD sewage committee Vic Derman attended, and made critical comments about the CRD sewage plan. Vic noted that he will be presenting an in-depth presentation of his "Natural City" vision, 14 April, 7:30pm, in Reynolds School Auditorium.
------------------------------
GEORGIA STRAIT MAP - CRD OUTFALL LABLES DISAPPEAR
After contacting the GSA community mappers about their misplacing "outfall" lables, I notice that the Clover and Macaulay Point outfall lables have disappeared. I also told them that they should add the problem storm drains to their map, as well as the DFO sanitary shellfish closures - which DFO puts around ALL sewage outfalls no matter what the level of treatment.
GSA Community Map: http://mapping.uvic.ca/
------------------------------
BC CITIES MUST SPEND BILLIONS TO SAVE THEIR AGING ASSETS
B.C. may be worse off than other parts of the country, but no one knows because the work has yet to be itemized
Don Cayo,
Vancouver Sun
April 5, 2011
Canadian cities face a massive backlog of work to repair and preserve the assets they own - structures of all kinds, transit networks, roads, waterworks and much more. And the longer it's put off, the more the eventual costs soar.
B.C. may be even worse off than other parts of the country -nobody really knows -because our big cities haven't even begun to itemize what needs to be done.
That's the nub of what I learned chatting with Casey Vander Ploeg, Canada West Foundation's senior policy analyst, who has spent a lot of time looking into such issues.
Quite a bit of the nation's civic infrastructure dates back to the 1960s and '70s, a time when governments spent almost five per cent of GDP, or two to three times the low of a few years later, to build things. So all this is 40 or 50 years old -plus all the assets that are even older, maybe much older.
Yet routine maintenance and even full-fledged rehabilitation was all too easy to put off by governments struggling to balance their books throughout the 1990s and the early years of the decade just ended, Vander Ploeg noted.
The good news, he told me, was that this started to turn around in the last few years. First, it was thanks to the federal decision to turn a portion of gasoline tax revenue over to the municipalities, and then to the nearly $50 billion in stimulus spending.
But now, with the stimulus spending ending and governments once again awash in red ink, the temptation is to once again put off maintenance and refurbishment.
"If you're trying to balance a budget, the quickest and least painful way politically is not to cut back on operating expenditures, but to cut back on capital investment. It's not as visible.
"So, the progress we're finally making could end abruptly."
What's called Canada's infrastructure deficit -it's really "infrastructure debt" as it's the cumulative amount built up by years of neglect -is calculated differently by different people. Estimates range from $50 billion to $570 billion, depending with whom you talk.
That's too much variation to be of much use, but the Canadian Federation of Municipalities pegs the total in 2007 at a precise-sounding $123 billion, including more than $50 billion for transit and transportation and $40 billion for cultural and recreation facilities.
This total, the federation said, tripled between 1996 and 2007. So, given that the numbers I've cited are four years old, today's figures may be higher still.
Vander Ploeg, using estimates based on capital requests in B.C. cities because no precise data are available, reckons that Western Canada's seven largest cities need $2 billion a year more than they spend now to meet the need for repair, rehabilitation and replacement of their assets.
He estimates the shortfall to be almost $100 million a year in Vancouver, and about half of that in Victoria.
Putting off a decision to spend the money now, he said, will mean even higher costs in the end.
"If an asset needs major maintenance, this carries a certain cost.
"But if you don't do it, then the asset will degrade much more quickly. And the next thing you know, the major maintenance won't solve the problem any more. Now you need to rehabilitate it, which is much more expensive.
"And if you postpone the rehabilitation, the asset continues to degrade and before you know it you can't maintain it or rehabilitate it -you have to replace it. That comes at a cost that is five or 10 times what rehabilitation is."
So, where are cities going to get that kind of money? Vander Ploeg has one or two ideas, and so do I. More on this Wednesday.
dcayo@vancouversun.com To comment, visit Don Cayo's blog at www.vancouversun.com/cayo
http://www.vancouversun.com/
------------------------------
B.C. may be worse off than other parts of the country, but no one knows because the work has yet to be itemized
Don Cayo,
Vancouver Sun
April 5, 2011
Canadian cities face a massive backlog of work to repair and preserve the assets they own - structures of all kinds, transit networks, roads, waterworks and much more. And the longer it's put off, the more the eventual costs soar.
B.C. may be even worse off than other parts of the country -nobody really knows -because our big cities haven't even begun to itemize what needs to be done.
That's the nub of what I learned chatting with Casey Vander Ploeg, Canada West Foundation's senior policy analyst, who has spent a lot of time looking into such issues.
Quite a bit of the nation's civic infrastructure dates back to the 1960s and '70s, a time when governments spent almost five per cent of GDP, or two to three times the low of a few years later, to build things. So all this is 40 or 50 years old -plus all the assets that are even older, maybe much older.
Yet routine maintenance and even full-fledged rehabilitation was all too easy to put off by governments struggling to balance their books throughout the 1990s and the early years of the decade just ended, Vander Ploeg noted.
The good news, he told me, was that this started to turn around in the last few years. First, it was thanks to the federal decision to turn a portion of gasoline tax revenue over to the municipalities, and then to the nearly $50 billion in stimulus spending.
But now, with the stimulus spending ending and governments once again awash in red ink, the temptation is to once again put off maintenance and refurbishment.
"If you're trying to balance a budget, the quickest and least painful way politically is not to cut back on operating expenditures, but to cut back on capital investment. It's not as visible.
"So, the progress we're finally making could end abruptly."
What's called Canada's infrastructure deficit -it's really "infrastructure debt" as it's the cumulative amount built up by years of neglect -is calculated differently by different people. Estimates range from $50 billion to $570 billion, depending with whom you talk.
That's too much variation to be of much use, but the Canadian Federation of Municipalities pegs the total in 2007 at a precise-sounding $123 billion, including more than $50 billion for transit and transportation and $40 billion for cultural and recreation facilities.
This total, the federation said, tripled between 1996 and 2007. So, given that the numbers I've cited are four years old, today's figures may be higher still.
Vander Ploeg, using estimates based on capital requests in B.C. cities because no precise data are available, reckons that Western Canada's seven largest cities need $2 billion a year more than they spend now to meet the need for repair, rehabilitation and replacement of their assets.
He estimates the shortfall to be almost $100 million a year in Vancouver, and about half of that in Victoria.
Putting off a decision to spend the money now, he said, will mean even higher costs in the end.
"If an asset needs major maintenance, this carries a certain cost.
"But if you don't do it, then the asset will degrade much more quickly. And the next thing you know, the major maintenance won't solve the problem any more. Now you need to rehabilitate it, which is much more expensive.
"And if you postpone the rehabilitation, the asset continues to degrade and before you know it you can't maintain it or rehabilitate it -you have to replace it. That comes at a cost that is five or 10 times what rehabilitation is."
So, where are cities going to get that kind of money? Vander Ploeg has one or two ideas, and so do I. More on this Wednesday.
dcayo@vancouversun.com To comment, visit Don Cayo's blog at www.vancouversun.com/cayo
http://www.vancouversun.com/
------------------------------
TALKS: PICS BREAD,WATER & GLOBAL WARMING, 11 APRIL; TRASHED 13 APRIL; SUSTAINABLE SEAS 18 APRIL
UVic Biology Department is hosting Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Society, on April 18-19, 2011 as the 2011 Distinguished Women Scholar. Dr. Earle will present a public lecture and a research seminar.
PUBLIC LECTURE
“Sustainable Seas: the Vision, The Reality”
Monday, April 18 at 7:30 pm
Bob Wright Centre A150
Location at UVic: http://www.uvic.ca/
Dr. Sylvia Earle is a legend in oceanography. In her pioneering PhD studies on aquatic plant life, she recognized the link between ocean flora and fauna, ocean conditions and climate. She has published extensively on biological systems, led more than 400 expeditions, and contributed engineering developments that facilitate ocean exploration. She is the National Geographic explorer-in-residence. This lecture will discuss the protection of our oceans in the broadest scale which formed the basis of her recent book, The World is Blue: How our Fate and the Ocean’s is One.
Also:
RESEARCH SEMINAR WITH DR. EARLE
“Researching the Deep Blue”
Tuesday, April 19 at 11 am, ECS 116
-----
“Researching the Deep Blue”
Tuesday, April 19 at 11 am, ECS 116
-----
'TRASHED' FILM, 13 APRIL
Film synopsis:
“Trashed” is a provocative investigation of one of the fastest growing industries in North America: the garbage business. The film examines a fundamental element of modern American culture…the disposal of what our society defines as “waste”. It is an issue influenced by every American, most of whom never consider the consequences. nor, it seems, the implications to our biosphere. At times humorous, but deeply poignant, “Trashed” examines the American waste stream fast approaching a half billion tons annually.
What are the effects all this waste will have on already strained natural resources? Why is so much of it produced? While every American creates almost 5 pounds of it every day, who is affected most? And who wants America to make more? The film analyzes the causes and effects of the seemingly innocuous act of “taking out the garbage” while showcasing the individuals, activists, corporate and advocacy groups working to affect change and reform the current model. “Trashed” is an informative and thought-provoking film everyone interested in the future of sustainability should see.
Video trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Wednesday, April 13th, 7pm-9pm
Burnside Gorge Community Centre - 471 Cecelia Road
Refreshments provided, please BYOMug
EGB Victoria Steering Committee
EGB website: http://cascadiagbc.
-----------
PICS BREAD,WATER & GLOBAL WARMING, 11 APRIL
April meeting: monday 11th, 7 - 9pm at the Burnside Gorge Community Assn, 471 Cecilia Rd.
Tom Pedersen, Executive Director for Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, will present 'Bread, Water and Global Warming.'
Tom's presentation will cover recent developments in climate science, discuss impacts on various continents and countries, adaptation successes, and steps that can be taken to reduce carbon emissions in Canada. The roles the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions is taking or intends to take will also be described.
We'll also have two brief presentations from the Victoria Transitions initiative.
Michael Nation
Chair, Victoria chapter
BC Sustainable Energy Assn.
------------------------------
April meeting: monday 11th, 7 - 9pm at the Burnside Gorge Community Assn, 471 Cecilia Rd.
Tom Pedersen, Executive Director for Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, will present 'Bread, Water and Global Warming.'
Tom's presentation will cover recent developments in climate science, discuss impacts on various continents and countries, adaptation successes, and steps that can be taken to reduce carbon emissions in Canada. The roles the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions is taking or intends to take will also be described.
We'll also have two brief presentations from the Victoria Transitions initiative.
Michael Nation
Chair, Victoria chapter
BC Sustainable Energy Assn.
------------------------------
END.
