August 16, 2012

- INDEPENDENT ACTIVIST EVENT STOP THE MADNESS! AT CRD HQ: 22 AUGUST, 9AM
BLOG POST BY PIETA VANDYKE RECOMMENDS LETTER TO MINISTER KENT
TRASHING OUR SEWAGE PLANT SKEPTICS - A PRO-SEWAGE PLANT RANT 
VICTORIA'S AMENDED NEW PLAN OMITS MENTION OF SEWAGE PLANTS

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INDEPENDENT ACTIVIST EVENT STOP THE MADNESS! AT CRD HQ: 22 AUGUST, 9AM

While it is a great initiative of ARESST members Tim and Norman, this action is independent of ARESST.

NOTICE FROM TIM DAVIS AND NORMAN CLARK: 

The Provincial Government and the Capital Regional District are bent on imposing a totally unnecessary and harmful sewage treatment plant upon the taxpayers of the Victoria region. "... this is the largest infrastructure project, in the (Victoria) region's history," says the Victoria Times Colonist. 

Although the project plans are not final, and no bids are in, the CRD estimates that the project will cost a total of $800,000,000 (over three quarters of a billion dollars!!!!) before overruns and operating costs plus a huge yearly operating budget. The boondoggle will cost each property owner/taxpayer in Victoria, Oak Bay,  Saanich, Colwood, Esquimalt, Langford and View Royal from $300 to $1,000 a year (it could be much more ... interest alone on the new project's debt could be over $300,000 a week). 

According to independent ARESST scientists, the project is not only totally useless ---- by emitting huge quantities of green house gases, it will be immensely harmful. The CRD and the province claim that the project is required by a federal law, The Fisheries Act of Canada. But, in order for the federal government to be involved, the CRD and the Province must prove that our present sewage treatment system is "deleterious" to the fish population of the region. 

According to independent scientists the present system is not deleterious --- in fact it is the most efficient and effective way we could deal with our sewage. Even if the Fisheries Act did apply, the CRD and the Province could apply to the federal government to exempt Victoria from the regulations governing wastewater --- they have exercised absolutely no leadership in that regard whatsoever. The B.C. government has imposed on the boondoggle project a classic public/private partnership structure under which the Lord only knows who will privately benefit.
If you have read recent letters to the Editor in the Times Colonist and The Victoria News, you will realize that opposition to the project is growing rapidly. To squelch that opposition before it gets out of hand, the CRD and the provincial government have concocted a scheme to rush the project through a meeting of the CRD board at 9 am next Wednesday, August 22. 

They hope, of course, that, before our citizenry becomes aware of what the provincial government and the CRD are up to, the horse and all accountability for the project will be "out of the barn". 

ARESST members Norman Clark and Tim Davis have organized STOP THE MADNESS!!!, a protest demonstration at the CRD meeting. STOP THE MADNESS!!! needs you to attend the meeting --- and needs to know you will attend and/or will support the protest. 

Please show them your support by emailing them a simple "I'M WITH YOU" message at stopthemadness@shaw.ca.

The CRD meeting is being held at CRD headquarters at 625 Fisgard Street between Douglas and Government Streets. Free 2-hour street parking couple of blocks north on Government or Douglas street.








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BLOG POST BY PIETA VANDYKE RECOMMENDS LETTER TO MINISTER KENT

Barra (Pieta VanDyke, former Victoria councillor) posted following comment as Barra about the proposed sewage treatment plant on Vibrant Victoria's  Sewage Treatment internet site, 16 August, 11:06 AM:

If, like me, you have concerns about the federal government's heavy handedness in this matter, I urge you to write to the Hon. Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment, 10 Wellington St., 28th floor, Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3

There is no postage required, and a hand written letter gets more attention than an email.

I am shocked to read about the new Regs. to the Fisheries Act that would see someone fined or put in jail if they did not support the imposed project. If I had been faced with this when I was a municipal Councillor, I would have not been able to speak my mind on the issue or to speak on behalf of a large percent of my constituents, or to speak in support of scientific evidence. If I were currently a municipal Councillor I would be urging the municipality to initiate a legal challenge on this preposterous law.
ca/forum/showthread.php?p=

195072#post195072

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TRASHING OUR SEWAGE PLANT SKEPTICS - A PRO-SEWAGE PLANT RANT 

ARESST: Take a deep breath to start reading Dr. Sierra Rayne's hatchet job that insults and denigrates our position on the sewage treatment plant project, and keeping in mind that Rayne doesn't stoop to actually referring to science, but rather to the time-tested debate technique of false dichotomies, fallacy of extension, etc.

Curious how professional chemistry PhD such as Dr Rayne arrives at their aggressive perspective, using rather little actual scientific criticism and a whole lot of insulting and name-calling. Maybe there is a paradigm among Conservative defence hawk eco-realists (as he describes himself on his twitter profile) that somehow sees huge concrete and steel sewage treatment plants as being a triumphalistic trophy of their iconoclastic positions. 

In a similar vein, Pollution Probe (Ontario) Elizabeth Brubaker is another libertarian who is totally for burdening Victoria with another, unnecessary s ewage treatment plant - but Brubaker's ideological cachet is to criticise the federal and provincial subsidy! At least unlike our BC-based sewage plant advocates such as Georgia Strait Alliance who have been very quiet recently, Dr. Rayne is willing to wade in with both feet. 

Rayne appears to live in Saskatchewan and if anybody wishes to correspond with him, email is rayne.sierra@gmail.com
Rayne's twitter profile: Scientist focused on energy, environmental, and national security issues. Conservative. Defence hawk. Eco-realist.
Rayne's Facebook page says he got PhD chemistry from UVic in 2005.

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VICTORIA'S AMENDED NEW PLAN OMITS MENTION OF SEWAGE PLANTS

Thanks to City of Victoria Councillor Shellie Gudgeon whose intervention resulted in the removal of mention of sewage plants in Victoria's new Official Community Plan. While the current sewage plant assumes that Esquimalt's McLoughlin Point will be site of sewage plant, removal of mention in the Victoria OCP at least will raise questions if there is a move to shift the mega-sewage treatment plant into City of Victoria. 

As it is, about 3.5 kms of large new sewage pipe would have to be laid along Dallas Road waterfront between Clover Point and Shoal Point, where it will go under Victoria Harbour (and transect a seismic fault) to reach McLoughlin Point.

Gone from OCP: 

Section 11: Infrastructure:  http://www.

shapeyourfuturevictoria.ca/
the-plan/the-proposed-official-community-plan-march-2012/

11.5.1 Coordination with Capital Regional District plans and works undertaken, such as new sewage treatment plants;

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