- CFAX 1070 INTERVIEW WITH DR. SHAUN PECK
- NEW ARESST VIDEO
-
SEWAGE TALK CAPTURES VICTORIA RESIDENTS' ATTENTION
-
SEWAGE 'CIRCUS' DESERVES THE CURTAIN
- WE NEED TO SOLVE OUR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
- CMOS: "OCEAN, ATMOSPHERE & CHANGING PACIFIC"
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CFAX 1070 INTERVIEW WITH DR. SHAUN PECK
Click on the link to go to the online MP3 recording, and then scroll to the 10:50 minute mark to hear Shaun speak.
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NEW ARESST VIDEO: "THE WASTEWATER ISSUE - SCIENCE AND POLITICS AT ODDS IN VICTORIA
This video describes how politics threatens to defy common sense when it comes to the treatment and disposal of Victoria’s wastewater.
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SEWAGE TALK CAPTURES GREATER VICTORIA RESIDENTS' ATTENTION
Erin McCracken
Victoria News, Saanich News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream Gazette (not yet in paper editions)
May 27, 2011
With lined paper and pencils at the ready, almost 100 people attended a community-driven forum on the Greater Victoria sewage system.
“This was really good,” said Esquimalt resident Muriel Dunn, who expressed concern about who was in attendance Thursday night at the S.J. Willis educational centre.
“I thought there would have been more Esquimalt residents because of McLaughlin Point being such an important issue.” The Esquimalt site has been selected by the Capital Regional District to host a liquid waste treatment facility.
During a question-and-answer session, more than a dozen people lined up at the microphone, hungering for more information. But others others questioned the forum’s bias.
“I feel this is heavy-handed. It’s totalitarian,” said one man. “Where’s the pro-sewage (treatment facility) side?” Organizers explained that CRD representatives were invited to give a presentation, but declined.
Seven scientists, academics, health officials such as Dr. Richard Stanwick, chief medical health officer for Vancouver Island Health Authority, and members of the Association for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment, discussed a cost-benefit analysis of the estimated $720-million sewage facility, as well as environmental and health-risk comparisons of the two systems – under the marine-based sewage system, effluent is screened and piped out two outfalls and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“The comments from the professionals really caused you to step back and go, ‘what are we doing?’” said Esquimalt resident David Hodgins, who was struck most by concern panelists have for storm water runoff impacts on the sea rather than sewage.
“If I thought (the proposed facilities) would fix the problem, I wouldn’t hesitate to pay for that,” he said.
In an effort to promote the forum as a grassroots effort, about 30 residents’ associations were asked to endorse the event.
Through these groups, the meeting was advertised to about 4,000 residents in Victoria, Esquimalt, Saanich, Oak Bay, View Royal and Colwood.
More information is available at www.smartsewage.webs.com.
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SEWAGE 'CIRCUS' DESERVES THE CURTAIN (BURCHILL)
Saanich News, Victoria News, Oak Bay News, Goldstream Gazette, Peninsula News Review (in paper editions too)
May 27, 2011
Costly ventures all about timing (Our View, May 11)
Capital Region residents do have an option regarding the proposed sewage treatment system. Every resident has the democratic right to be an engaged citizen and demand that such a project be justified.
The decision by former B.C. environment minister Barry Penner was a political decision that had little basis in science.
The report the minister relied upon does vacillate around the suggestion that the issue should be decided by “the expressed will of the electorate” in a referendum on the matter.
The current system has been monitored for decades in one of the most intensive outfall monitoring programs in the world, and thousands of pages of data, hundreds of reports, dozens of studies show it has minimal effect on the marine environment and that there is no evidence of harm to human health.
Citizens should be outraged that this sewage circus is being driven more by the antics of some clown dressed as a turd than by years of reports and reviews that our tax dollars have paid for.
Brian Burchill
Victoria
http://www.bclocalnews.com/
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WE NEED TO SOLVE OUR POLLUTION PROBLEMS
LETTERS
Anne Forbes
Times Colonist
May 27, 2011
Click here to send letter to Times Colonist: letters@
The two very urgent issues of car pollution and raw sewage being dumped into the ocean have to be addressed now.
We cannot wait five years for light rail and the Pacific Ocean is already polluted beyond words if you also factor in all the tons of radioactive waste from Japan.
We cannot complain about paying higher taxes to solve these issues because if we don't we will all be to blame when Vancouver Island is not the beautiful place it once was.
We'll have to see what results Elizabeth May and Christy Clark produce after all their promises at election time.
Anne Forbes
Victoria
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CMOS CONGRESS: "OCEAN, ATMOSPHER AND THE CHANGING PACIFIC"
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographical Society
June 5 to 9, 2011
Victoria Conference Centre
PUBLIC LECTURES:
Victoria Conference Centre
PUBLIC LECTURES:
(Summary)
Tuesday June 7, 7:30pm
Dr. Ken Denman
Chief Scientist Venus Network,
Dr. Ken Denman
Chief Scientist Venus Network,
University of Victoria and Environment Canada
Exploring ocean frontiers - we have more to learn.
(Summary)
Thursday June 9, 7:30pm
Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe
Canada Research Chair in Deep Ocean Research,
Canada Research Chair in Deep Ocean Research,
University of Victoria
MORE INFORMATION ON THIS CMOS CONGRESS: http://www.cmos.ca/
END.
