- REGIONAL WATER SUPPLY COMMISSION MEETS 2 MAY (energy recovery from sewage on agenda)
- TORIES UNVEIL REVISED FISHERIES LAW, DENY IT'S A MOVE TO BOOST PIPELINES
- WASHINGTON STATE: POLLUTION LIMITS HARVEST IN ONE SHELLFISH AREA; NINE OTHER AREAS THREATENED
- US: FIRST EVALUATION OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT'S EFFECTS ON COASTAL WATERS REVEALS MAJOR SUCCESSES.
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REGIONAL WATER SUPPLY COMMISSION MEETS 2 MAY (energy recovery from sewage on agenda)
May 2, 2012, 12:30pm, CRD Boardroom, 6 Floor, 625 Fisgard Street
AGENDA:
Includes
6. Presentations/Delegations
• Presentation by Dan Telford, P.Eng., Senior Manager, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sustainability, regarding Community Energy and Heat Recovery from Wastewater and Potable Water
• Presentation by DEC design Mechanical Consultants Ltd. and Opus Dayton-Knight Consultants Ltd. on Appendix A of the staff report entitled Thermal Energy Recovery from Greater Victoria Water Supply System Transmission Mains – Pilot Project
REPORT:
Thermal Energy Recovery from Greater Victoria Water Supply System Transmission Mains - Pilot Project:
7. Thermal Energy Recovery From Greater Victoria Water Supply System Transmission Mains – Pilot Project
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Agenda Item #6 - Resources Management
PROPOSED RGS/RSS STRUCTURE AND APPROACH
Key Strategic Area: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The Region should maximize the resource potential of regional infrastructure.
- Implement Integrated Watershed Management Strategy under the Core Area Liquid Waste Management Plan.
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ARESST: Could revised fisheries law impact on our CRD sewage treatment plant issue? Recent discussion about federal changes to environmental impact assessment process ignores our situation where the CRD is proceeding with sewage treatment plant and energy centre but without adequate environmental impact assessment. They have legal authority to skimp on EIA under the Municipal Sewage Regulations, but do these MSRs cover a P3 "Energy Centre" too? Don't think so...
TORIES UNVEIL REVISED FISHERIES LAW, DENY IT'S A MOVE TO BOOST PIPELINES
Critics say protection for fish habitat 'eliminated' in bill to appease businesses
Peter O'Neil
Vancouver Sun
Postmedia News
April 27, 2012
The Harper government unveiled a budget-implementation bill Thursday that includes Fisheries Act amendments that would strip the term "habitat" from the most crucial section of the law. Accusations that the government is giving in to demands from energy and mining lobbyists are false, said Erin Filliter, spokeswoman for Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield.
"These are changes being made in our department that are designed to help Canadians - everyday Canadians: landowners, municipalities, farmers - be able to undertake activities on their properties without obtrusive interference by our department." But opposition critics and environmental groups say the government is misleading the public. They say the bill is designed to appease the natural resource sector.
"The legal protection for fish habitat has been completely eliminated," said Jessica Clogg, executive director and senior lawyer for West Coast Environmental Law in Vancouver.
New Democratic Party fisheries critic Fin Donnelly said Ashfield is not being honest when he insists corporate lobbying had nothing to do with the changes.
"They are trying to hide these changes from the Canadian public," Donnelly said.
The new legislation says the government is eliminating the key provision in the act - section 35 (1), which says "no person shall carry on any work or undertaking that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat."
The new wording reads that "no person shall carry on any work, undertaking or activity that results in serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or aboriginal fishery, or to fish that support such a fishery."
The government defines "serious harm" as "the death of fish or any permanent alteration to, or destruction of, fish habitat."
And the minister will make decisions on allowing harm to fish based on their "contribution - to the ongoing productivity of commercial,
recreational or aboriginal fisheries." Critics say the government is changing the law to make it easier for companies to advance major projects such as Calgary-based Enbridge Inc.'s proposed $5.5-billion oilsands pipeline to the B.C. coast.
The pipeline would cross an estimated 1,000 waterways and Ashfield acknowledged some of them won't fit the definition of a stream that is part of any of the three protested fisheries.
Enbridge has complained about "onerous" requirements imposed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, according to internal documents released under the Access to Information Act. But Ashfield said earlier this week he wasn't swayed by the company's concerns.
"No, Enbridge lobbying did not influence this decision," he told The Vancouver Sun.
The company "has certainly never influenced me in any way, shape or form. I've never sat down with Enbridge, I've never had any discussions with Enbridge."
While the federal lobbyist registry shows no meetings between Enbridge and Ashfield since he became fisheries minister, records do show the company has been busy.
Chief executive Pat Daniel, for instance, lobbied Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, in December on the company's push for "regulatory streamlining - seeking improved efficiencies in the government secondary permitting processes for department of fisheries and oceans permits."
And David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, met last month with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver over a proposal to "repeal" the Fisheries Act and create new fisheries
legislation.
Ashfield has also had meetings with others interested in the impact of Fisheries Act regulations on their companies.
Kinder Morgan Canada Inc. lobbyist Brian Klunder met in late January with Ashfield and the minister's chief of staff, Fred Nott, to discuss "energy policy relating to pipeline development." Kinder Morgan recently announced it is seeking National Energy Board approval to expand capacity of its pipeline system from Alberta to Burnaby.
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ARESST: Pillar Point County Park is at least 60 kms West of Victoria.
WASHINGTON STATE: POLLUTION LIMITS HARVEST IN ONE SHELLFISH AREA; NINE OTHER AREAS THREATENED
High bacteria levels force action in Clallam County harvest area
Dept of Health, Washington State.
OLYMPIA – High bacteria levels found near Pillar Point County Park in Clallam County will close the area to shellfish harvesting during late summer and early fall. The state Department of Health also listed nine of Washington’s 101 commercial shellfish growing areas as threatened with closure because of pollution.
Efforts to find and fix problems in all threatened shellfish areas are underway. If high bacteria levels continue in these shellfish areas, they may be closed to harvesting:
Grays Harbor County – Grays Harbor, Pacific Coast; Jefferson County – Port Townsend Bay; Kitsap County – Burley Lagoon; Mason County – Hood Canal 6 (Alderbrook area); Pacific County – Naselle River; Pierce County – Burley Lagoon, Filucy Bay; Snohomish County – Port Susan; Whatcom County – Portage Bay.
“We’re actually seeing the fewest number of threatened shellfish growing areas since 1997 when we started evaluations,” said Jerrod Davis, director of the Office of Shellfish and Water Protection. “That’s good news. Sewage systems, agricultural waste, boating waste, and stormwater runoff are being managed better near shellfish areas. We can build on that progress.”
"Today, hundreds of public, private and tribal partners are working together to make Puget Sound healthy again,” said Gerry O'Keefe, executive director of the Puget Sound Partnership. “We applaud the Department of Health and the progress our region is making toward achieving our regional goal to restore and re-open 10,800 acres of harvestable shellfish beds by 2020."
The Office of Shellfish and Water Protection uses national standards to classify commercial shellfish harvesting areas in Washington. A map of the 2012 threatened areas and more information on the status of shellfish harvesting areas (www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/sf/grow.
Puget Sound Partnership (http://www.psp.wa.gov/) is a community effort of citizens, governments, tribes, scientists, and businesses working together to restore and protect Puget Sound.
The Department of Health website (www.doh.wa.gov) is your source for a healthy dose of information. Also, find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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ARESST: Los Angeles - 10 million people and heavy manufacturing history. If interested in reading the journal article, can download it here.
US: FIRST EVALUATION OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT'S EFFECTS ON COASTAL WATERS REVEALS MAJOR SUCCESSES.
Phys.Org
April 26, 2012
Levels of copper, cadmium, lead and other metals in Southern California's coastal waters have plummeted over the past four decades, according to new research from USC.
Samples taken off the coast reveal that the waters have seen a 100-fold decrease in lead and a 400-fold decrease in copper and cadmium.
Concentrations of metals in the surface waters off Los Angeles are now comparable to levels found in surface waters along a remote stretch of Mexico's Baja Peninsula.
Sergio Sañudo-Wilhelmy, who led the research team, attributed the cleaner water to sewage treatment regulations that were part of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and to the phase-out of leaded gasoline in the 1970s and 1980s.
"For the first time, we have evaluated the impact of the Clean Water Act in the waters of a coastal environment as extensive as Southern California," said Sañudo-Wilhelmy, professor of Biological and Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
"We can see that if we remove the contaminants from wastewater, eventually the ocean responds and cleans itself. The system is resilient to some extent," he said.
The USC researchers compared water samples from roughly 30 locations between Point Dume to the north and Long Beach to the south to samples taken in the exact same locations in 1976 by two researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz: Kenneth Bruland and Robert Franks.
"We wanted to assume that the Clean Water Act was working, but we needed good data to allow us to compare water conditions 'before and after,'" he said. "Fortunately for us, we have the data generated by Bruland and Franks.
That gave us a rare opportunity to see the impact of cleaning our sewage and see the effect on the coastal ocean. The population of Southern California has increased in the last 40 years, the sewage treatment has been improved, and the levels of metals in the coastal ocean have declined."
More information: Sañudo-Wilhelmy's team—which includes USC doctoral researcher Emily A. Smail and Eric A. Webb, associate professor at USC Dornsife—published its findings this month in Environmental Science and Technology.
Provided by University of Southern California
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