May 19, 2012

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE 23 MAY  & RELATED CRD BOARD MINUTES 9 MAY
MILLIONS SPENT BUT NO WORD FROM GOVERNMENT ON SEWAGE TREATMENT (plus editorial attached)
CITY OF VICTORIA: "SUSTAINABILITY PLAN GETS COUNCIL NOD"
THE CASE FOR STRONG ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (doesn't mention sewage plants!)

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ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE 23 MAY & RELATED CRD BOARD MINUTES 9 MAY

Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 9:30am, CRD Board Room:

#EHQ 12-35 Roundtable on the Environment Update and Introduction of Chair/Members
Report:  

#EEE 12-34 Thermal Energy Recovery from Potable Water System Transmission Mains – Feasibility Study
Report: 

#EHQ 12-37 Private Sector Information Updates
Report: 

#EPT 12-32 Appointments Under Section 29 of the Environmental Management Act – Adoption of New Process
Report: 

#EHQ 12-36 General Manager’s Report
Report:

Report from Solid Waste Advisory Committee


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CRD BOARD MINUTES 9 MAY

5.1 CORE AREA LIQUID WASTE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE – May 9, 2012

1. Program Management Consulting Services Budget Status – Core Area
Wastewater Treatment Program (EWW 12-28)

MOVED by Director Blackwell, SECONDED by Director Brownoff,
That the increase to Stantec’s Program Management and Technical Services budget by $50,000 be approved. CARRIED

5.3 ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE – April 25, 2012

1. Resource Recovery and Use Plan – A Business Case Analysis for Recovering
Heat from Sewage (EEE12)

MOVED by Director Desjardins, SECONDED by Director Mendum,
That staff be directed to:
1) ascertain the availability and submit applications for federal and/or provincial grants that could be secured to help fund the capital cost of the east coast interceptor attenuation tank heat recovery initiative;
2) work with the University of Victoria and other potential partners to develop memoranda of understanding regarding their participation in this project; and
3) forward a copy of the business case report to the Core Area Liquid Waste
Management Committee and Ministry of Environment.
CARRIED

2. Resource Recovery and Use Plan – A Business Case Analysis for Recovering
Heat from the Bowker Trunk Sewer (EEE 12-23)

MOVED by Director Desjardins, SECONDED by Director Mendum,
That staff be directed to:
1) ascertain the availability and submit applications for federal and/or provincial grants that could be secured to help fund the capital cost of this Oak Bay area heat recovery initiative;
2) work with the Victoria School District, the Municipality of Oak Bay and other potential partners to develop memoranda of understanding regarding their participation in this project; and
3) forward a copy of the business case report to the Core Area Liquid Waste
Management Committee and Ministry of Environment.

CARRIED


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ARESST: So much spent already but still no BCEAA environmental impact assessment even considered! Also, according to CFAX newscost has now risen to $791 millions from $782M, so for every toilet rented or owned in the CRD core area, land-based sewage treatment costs are rising.  

MILLIONS SPENT BUT NO WORD FROM GOVERNMENT ON SEWAGE TREATMENT plus editorial attached

Edward Hill
Saanich News
May 15, 2012 5:14pm

In six years the Capital Regional District has spent more than $18 million on planning for regional sewage treatment, but senior governments remain mum on funding the project.

The CRD liquid waste management committee approved another $50,000 for planning work last week, but little has happened in the past year as the province and federal governments mull approving a plan ordered by the B.C. Ministry of Environment in 2006.

“We think we’ll get an announcement in the next few months, or sooner. I think we are getting closer,” said committee chair Denise Blackwell, a Langford councillor. “We aren’t going ahead with anything until we have a signed agreement with the province and the feds for their share.”

The province accepted the CRD’s plan in August 2010 to build a wastewater treatment site at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt, a separate biosolids facility at Hartland Landfill or a a location closer to McLoughlin if possible. Underground storage tanks will be constructed in Saanich east. The CRD estimates capital costs for the sewage treatment system at $782 million, plus annual operating costs of $14.5 million.

An update report presented to the core area liquid waste management committee showed the CRD has spent $6.7 million acquiring land and more than $10 million on planning and technical report consultant fees. It has spent $1.5 million on public engagement and other aspects of planning.

The wastewater project has an overall planning budget of $30 million, underwritten by $23 million in loans and a $6.66 million grant from the provincial and federal governments.

In terms of unfinished business, Blackwell said it remains unclear how the seven CRD municipalities contributing to the system will divide the cost burden, although she suspects it be based on sewage flow volumes.

She said the committee would prefer to see a property tax line item for sewage treatment to build a fund ahead of time. “We don’t want to have a giant bill so we need to start collecting in advance,” Blackwell said.

Saanich councillor Vic Derman, a core area liquid waste management committee member, is part of a minority of dissenting voices at the committee table. He voted against spending another $50,000. “I’m concerned we continue to spend money without an indication the project is a go,” he said.

Derman argues the project should have been designed around resource recovery from the get-go – notably heat recovery from sewage – not as an afterthought. He worries the province will establish a commission to oversee construction and operation, but will create a mandate with few incentives to build resource recovery.

The CRD has said it hasn’t settled on any particular technology for wastewater treatment and has left the door open for innovative energy capture technologies during the procurement stage.

“If the commission stays within the scope of its budget, I worry there will be no incentive to innovate," Derman said. "Hopefully they do, but there is no guarantee as we politely pass over a huge cheque.”


ARESST: If you're on facebook, you can add your comment at bottom of the news article by going to link: http://www.saanichnews.com/news/151635425.html


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ARESST: As noted in 6 April ARESST News, City of Victoria believes that it can manage water and solid waste as "closed loop systems, with optimal levels of recovery and re-use; that waste water is managed to safeguard public health and to protect the marine environment" and for "coordination with Capital Regional District plans and works undertaken, such as new sewage treatment plants". However, news below includes no mention of land-based sewage treatment plant - maybe because it will be in Esquimalt?

CITY OF VICTORIA: "SUSTAINABILITY PLAN GETS COUNCIL NOD"
Times Colonist
May 18, 2012

Victoria councillors have endorsed a three-year sustainability action plan that includes exploring initiatives like bike-sharing and greening of the city's vehicle fleet.

While some councillors expressed concerns about potential costs, city director of sustainability Roy Brooke said funding would most likely be decided on a project-by-project basis.

Brooke said the overall plan was more of a broad strategy. "We're asking for approval on strategy, not on budget," he said.

The plan proposes a variety of initiatives that might be started over the next three years, including:

- development of a bike-share program;

- reduced energy consumption in civic buildings, and street and traffic lighting;

- greening of the city's vehicle fleet;

- implementation of kitchen scraps collection;

- completion of the conversion of the two former Traveller's Inns into affordable housing;

- working with the private sector to expand investment in green, health and clean technologies.

"We're saying these are the kinds of things that could evolve from these plans," Brooke said.

"With that sort of broad approval, then we start looking at these sorts of things."

He said something like the bike-share program - which would allow users to rent bikes through docking stations - would be paid for through advertising on the bikes and stations, costing the city and taxpayers very little.


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ARESST: Sandborn's case for environmental impact assessment might be applied to our sewage treatment plant issue - but don't count on Sandborn to voice support for that, given his role in the eco-advocacy legal organization at UVic. 

THE CASE FOR STRONG ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT (doesn't mention sewage plants!)
Calvin Sandborn
Times Colonist
May 19, 2012

Canadians should worry about Bill C-38, Ottawa's bid to gut the Environmental Assessment Act.

Let's not forget that there is a compelling reason for environmental assessments of industrial projects. Back in the days before environmental assessment laws, much unnecessary damage was done to the environment, to people, to the economy and to taxpayers.

For example:

-Mines have destroyed fisheries in numerous Canadian rivers, including Vancouver Island's Tsolum River.

-Pulp mill pollution closed shellfish harvesting along hundreds of kilometres of B.C. coastline.

-Pollution from an Ontario industrial plant poisoned the Grassy Narrows and Whitedog First Nations with mercury, a legacy that ravaged their nervous systems for decades.

-In Canada's North, the Faro Mine and the Giant Mine poisoned the environment - and are now costing taxpayers over $800 million to clean up.

-A number of Canadian lead smelters contaminated local children, likely affecting brain function.

-The steel plant in Sydney, N.S., transformed an idyllic estuary into a hazardouswaste site. The cleanup is costing Canadian taxpayers $400 million.

-At one time, Lake Erie was declared virtually dead (about the same time its U.S. tributary, the Cuyahoga River, actually caught fire and burned.)

When rivers began catching fire - and after the Santa Barbara oil spill devastated California's coastal wildlife - even conservatives like U.S. president Richard Nixon were convinced. Nixon signed a law requiring U.S. environmental assessments in 1969. Canada followed suit in 1992. The vast majority of developed countries in the world now require environmental assessments of industrial projects.

The reason that assessments are almost universally required is because they serve such an important function.

They are critical to ensure that industry:

-Avoids - or reduces - environmental harm, where possible;

-Makes the best use of resources;

-Leaves a healthy environment, both for businesses that depend on the environment (tourism, fisheries, forestry, etc.) and for future generations;

-Pays for the harm it does, instead of leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.

The current federal environmental assessment regime has accomplished a number of these important aims. While it has approved the vast majority of projects, it has often improved them and reduced their environmental impacts. And, very occasionally, it has rejected projects that would have done inordinate harm. For example, it nixed the proposal to accommodate a gold-copper mine by draining B.C.'s Fish Lake, a premier fishing lake home to 85,000 rainbow trout.

However, Ottawa seems to have forgotten why it is smart to assess project impacts ahead of time - why we should look before we leap. Instead, government ministers vigorously decry the "red tape" involved in environmental assessment. At times, they seem to view assessment as an illegitimate burden on industrial progress - and concerned citizens as inconvenient opponents of the "urgent national interest."

This government rhetoric against environmental assessment red tape is eerily familiar. It echoes the rhetoric used by U.S.

Republican officials who acted to weaken environmental assessment in that country. Canadians should take note. This U.S. approach did not turn out well.

Consider the catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the U.S. law had been weakened, the U.S. government no longer required British Petroleum to do a worstcase analysis of deepwater drilling. In addition, the weakened law enabled government to exempt BP from carrying out an environmental impact analysis of its drilling. Yet this missing environmental assessment could have prevented the catastrophe.

Of course, after the BP spill, the U.S. government acknowledged the problem and toughened up its assessment requirements again. But that was too late - 11 workers were already dead, and five million barrels of oil had been released into the waters of the gulf. The spill contaminated more than 1,100 kilometres of coast line, closed fishing for 150,000 square miles, devastated wildlife and birds and threatened the economies of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida. Total damage has been estimated at $100 billion.

Clearly, loosening environmental rules can impose a heavy cost.

So sure, unnecessary red tape should be reduced. But remember that the stakes are high when we eviscerate environmental law. Right now, the government is replacing the entire Environmental Assessment Act and rushing it through Parliament - refusing to even allow the standing committee on the environment to examine the new act.

This is no way to protect the national interest. Canadians - like the people of the Gulf Coast - may come to rue the day.

- Calvin Sandborn is legal director of the University of Victoria Environmental Law Clinic

http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=592289a6-088e-4d32-a214-29236bb29604&p=2

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