EVENTS AND PUBLIC ACTIONS COMING UP:
- VIEW ROYAL COMMUNITY PICNIC 22 SEPT
REPORTS ON PAST ACTIONS:
- PRO-SCIENCE RALLY, DOWNTOWN VICTORIA, 14 SEPT (JOHN BERGBUSCH)
- LUXTON FALL FAIR, 14-15 SEPT
CRD-RELATED SEWAGE NEWS:
- CRD CALWMC INVITES JOINT VICTORIA-ESQUIMALT DESIGN PANEL
- SAANICH PENINSULA WASTEWATER COMMISSION MEETS 20 SEPT
GENERAL SEWAGE-RELATED NEWS:
- CANADA: "NEW WASTEWATER REGULATIONS COULD COST CITIES BILLIONS" (VANCOUVER-ORIENTATED)
- PUGET SOUND: FEMINIZED FISH: A SIDE EFFECT OF EMERGING CONTAMINANTS (that get through sewage treatment)
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EVENTS AND PUBLIC ACTIONS COMING UP:
View Royal Day at Helmcken Centennial Park just off the Island Highway on Portage Inlet.
PRO-SCIENCE RALLY, DOWNTOWN VICTORIA, 14 SEPT (JOHN BERGBUSCH)
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REPORTS ON PAST ACTIONS:
Excerpt from John B's notes of the event:
One of the speakers was a "scientist" in disguise....he invoked the memory of Mr Floatie as a science based advocate....I challenged him on this after the rally... he says he's a toxicologist.... nonetheless I gave him the speil including the science names and challenged him to learn the facts...Then had a spirited discussion with Ken Wu, who organized the rally, and who is largely (self professed ) ignorant of the issue, but who seemed to support the land based project... I will have to follow up with him. Found a number of our supporters in the crowd, mostly young.
Excerpt from ex-Green Party candidate (and helpful ally) Steve Filipovic notes of the event:
As Elizabeth May summed it up "We are here to back science based decisions, not decision based science!" and she went on to the cheers of the many people attending, as did Andrew Weaver and Dr. X.
Dr. X mentioned something along those lines connected to the sewage debate, referring to how it was because of the science we are getting a Land-based treatment facility. It was said by an anonymous speaker going by the name Dr. X who was acting in incognito to complain against the cutbacks to sciences. He mentioned Mr. Floaty and supported the need for the treatment facility was based on science.
Dr. X mentioned something along those lines connected to the sewage debate, referring to how it was because of the science we are getting a Land-based treatment facility. It was said by an anonymous speaker going by the name Dr. X who was acting in incognito to complain against the cutbacks to sciences. He mentioned Mr. Floaty and supported the need for the treatment facility was based on science.
Mysterious Dr X stating that science supports land-based sewage treatment. 5-minute video of Dr X presentation now posted on
Facebook (pretty far down webpage) at:
Towards end of Dr. X 5-minute presentation, he says something like:
What do I have in common with Mr Floatie? We're both concerned about pollution in our oceans... Mr Floatie out of work because of reducing pollution with sewage treatment...he got
the job done..
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LUXTON FALL FAIR, 14-16 SEPT
ARESST got some signatures on petition, some donations - but it was mostly a family-orientated entertainment event. Thanks to the volunteers!
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CRD-RELATED SEWAGE NEWS:
CRD CALWMC INVITES JOINT VICTORIA-ESQUIMALT DESIGN PANEL
Below is CRD/CALWMC Jack Hull letter inviting joint design panel. A couple of Proposed Facility Renderings are on the Township of Esquimalt's website: http://www.thewrongplan.ca/ a
However, click here to see two letters from Victoria Esquimalt Harbour Society and Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, rejecting McLoughlin Point as sewage plant site. Both the VEHS and GVHA letters have several concerns, but its most interesting that the VEHS letter points to the MP site not "having undergone a thorough environmental impact study". In his reply to these concerns, CRD chief Geoff Young is quoted in a March 2011 news story as saying, "We’ll try to make it as attractive, or at least as inconspicuous, as possible, given that it (will be) a big building”.
At the same time, Save Victoria Harbour group demand a new Victoria Harbour Airport safety study, which is a good idea as that site is currently under a frequent low-altitude landing approach by floatplanes - map. A September 2010 report discusses need for a "safety case" for Victoria Harbour airport.
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SAANICH PENINSULA WASTEWATER COMMISSION MEETS 20 SEPT
AGENDA FOR MEETING
20 Sept, 9:15am, sewage plant meeting room
5.Stormwater Quality Annual Report – 2011
Report:
6.Wastewater and Marine Environment Program 2011 Annual Report and Update on Technical Water Quality Review Panel Activities
Report:
7.Biosolids Management Program – Update
Report:
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GENERAL SEWAGE-RELATED NEWS:
CANADA: "NEW WASTEWATER REGULATIONS COULD COST CITIES BILLIONS" (VANCOUVER-ORIENTATED)
PETER CAULFIELD
Journal of Commerce (Vancouver)
17 September 2012
In July, the federal government announced new regulations to control wastewater entering Canada's lakes, rivers and oceans.
The announcement prompted the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to call for federal funding to help pay for upgrades that will cost billions of dollars.
The government said about 75 per cent of municipalities in Canada are already in compliance with the new rules, but the remaining 25 per cent, about 850 individual communities or treatment areas, must upgrade to secondary wastewater treatment.
Municipalities that are considered high-risk have until 2020 to comply, while medium-risk municipalities have until 2030 and low-risk jurisdictions have until 2040.
By the end of 2014, all wastewater systems that need upgrading will have been identified and will know which deadline – 2020, 2030 or 2040 – applies to them.
According to the FCM, Metro Vancouver and Regina are among the municipalities requiring the most significant upgrades to their wastewater treatment systems.
In the Lower Mainland, local governments collect wastewater with their pipes and deliver it to Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD) pipes, from where it goes to regional treatment facilities.
There are five treatment facilities in the district: Lions Gate, Iona, Annacis Island, Lulu Island and Northwest Langley.
Greg Moore, mayor of Port Coquitlam, Greater Vancouver Regional District representative to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and MVRD chair, said two of the five – Lions Gate and Iona – need to be upgraded from primary treatment-only to secondary treatment.
“Both treatment facilities need to be completely rebuilt,” he said. “Lions Gate must be completed by 2020 and Iona by 2030.”
Moore said that building a new Lions Gate wastewater treatment facility will cost about $400 million and will require the plant to move from its present location below Lions Gate Bridge to about one kilometre east in an industrial area in the District of North Vancouver.
The Iona facility will be rebuilt at the same location in Richmond at a cost of about $1 billion.
FCM President Karen Leibovici said her organization believes the changes to the regulations are reasonable.
“We agree many of the wastewater systems in the country need to be upgraded,” she said. “Some of the systems in the country are over 100 years old.”
The federal government estimates upgrades associated with the regulations will cost municipalities a total of about $5 billion.
The FCM, however, puts the number at somewhere between $20 billion and $40 billion.
The FCM said funding for the new regulations must be added to the federal government’s new Long-Term Infrastructure Plan (LTIP) to pay for the once-in-a-generation costs of meeting the new requirements.
The new costs are above and beyond what municipalities already need to maintain and expand core infrastructure.
The LTIP is being developed by Infrastructure Canada and will be in place before current federal funding programs expire in 2014.
The federal government has not yet announced any plans for additional funding to municipalities that are affected by the new regulations.
Ministry of the Environment spokesman Mark Johnson said the federal government already provides municipalities with funding that can be used to help finance the wastewater upgrades.
“Since 2006, the Government of Canada has committed over $2.3 billion to wastewater infrastructure through a number of programs,” he said.
“Wastewater treatment infrastructure is an eligible category under (a number of programs and funds).”
The story is far from over, however.
Leibovici said the FCM has been having ongoing and positive discussions with the federal government about sharing the cost of upgrading wastewater treatment facilities.
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PUGET SOUND: FEMINIZED FISH: A SIDE EFFECT OF EMERGING CONTAMINANTS (that get through sewage treatment)
KUOW
Sept. 13, 2012
Rivers in America have stopped catching on fire. Big industrial polluters have been reined in. Overall, water quality has improved under the Clean Water Act.
But for all of its successes, the landmark environmental law was never designed to control contaminants that emerged after its 1972 passage. These pollutants are affecting the environment in new and different ways.
Consider the feminized fish of Puget Sound.
That’s something Lyndal Johnson has been doing a lot of lately. Johnson is a fisheries biologist and toxicologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She and a team of scientists were out sampling English sole –- a flatfish common to the sound’s Elliott Bay — when they noticed something, well, fishy.
“These fish in Elliott Bay, when all the other fish had completed spawning, ready to go home, it’s all over for them, the Elliott Bay were still ripe and still had eggs that they had not yet spawned.”
The team went back and sampled more fish around Puget Sound and found even creepier results. Some male fish were producing a protein called vitellogenin. Vitellogenin is a protein used to make egg yolks.
That’s not something you want to see in male fish, says Jim West, a senior scientist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. West was with Lyndal Johnson when they found the weird fish.
“It’s an indication that they’ve been exposed to something, some chemical, that is essentially feminizing them.”
These fish weren’t dying. From the outside, they didn’t even look different. But there were striking changes going on inside them.
The team took more samples. The results: almost half of the 49 male English sole they tested at the Elliott bay sight on the Seattle waterfront were producing the female egg yolk protein. Elevated egg protein levels were also found at sample sites in Tacoma’s Commencement Bay and near Everett.
Perhaps more disturbingly, the researchers found similar results in the endangered juvenile chinook salmon they tested at the Elliott Bay site.
The fish here are not alone. The U.S. Geological Survey collected bass from more than 100 rivers around the country. One third of those fish showed signs of feminization and intersex characteristics.
“Mainly what we saw were testicular oocytes in what would otherwise be normal testicular tissues,” says Don Tillitt, a toxicologist with the US GS in Columbia, Missouri.
Basically, testes with eggs in them.
Pinpointing the exact chemicals that are causing this feminization and intersex development has been the biggest challenge for scientists so far. But many believe a group of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors are to blame.
They’re sort of like hormone imposters. They act like normal hormones – estrogen or testosterone for example – and mess with the body’s natural hormonal messaging system.
Bisphenol A is probably the most well-known chemical in this family. It’s commonly referred to as BPA. You’ll find it in certain plastics, the liners of canned goods, epoxies – even kids toys.
Synthetic estrogen from birth control pills has also been shown to feminize fish.
These chemicals get into our bodies and then end up in wastewater. Tillitt says that wastewater, even though it’s been treated, carries some of them into nearby waterways, and can negatively affect immune system response and reproductive health in fish.
“It’s not surprising,” he notes, “that in certain locations, downstream from wastewater treatment plants, are some of the most common locations where we can find intersex (fish).”
The problem is: even the most modern wastewater treatment facilities aren’t specifically designed to remove this new class of chemicals.
Tillitt says regulation and treatment systems are going to have to adapt to manage endocrine disrupting chemicals, though it won’t be easy or cheap.
Environmental agencies here have known about endocrine disrupting chemicals and some of their impacts on animals since the 90’s.
“We recognize this is a problem but we don’t have it under control,” says Scott Redman, a senior science program specialist with the Puget Sound Partnership. The governmental agency lists endocrine disrupting chemicals as a threat to Puget Sound and says they will eliminate the harm to fish by 2020. But their plan of attack is somewhat hazy.
“We have efforts to control stormwater and to improve wastewater,” Redman says, “Those we think will help but we may need more targeted efforts to the specific chemicals that are causing this harm and we haven’t grappled yet with what those specific actions may be.”
A major national health study found Bisphenol A in the urine of more than 90 percent of Americans. It’s also prevalent in stormwater samples collected in King County, Wash.
After years of debate the federal government banned the use of bisphenol A in baby bottles and sippy cups this summer. It’s too soon to say if that ban has had any effect.
Jim West says these new chemicals present challenges that the authors of the Clean Water Act could never have seen coming. And that calls for strong action and fresh thinking.
“I like to say that the fish are telling us what the problems are,” he says, “if we’re out there looking.”
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END.
