EVENTS AND PUBLIC ACTIONS COMING UP WITH ARESST:
** COME TO OUR ARESST TOWN HALL MEETING 3 OCTOBER, 7:30PM, ST ANN'S ACADEMY!!
- SEE OUR NEW STOPABADPLAN WEBSITE!!
REPORTS ON PAST ARESST ACTIONS:
- LETTER: ARESST MEMBER CLARIFIES GROUP'S POSITION (BURCHILL)
CRD-RELATED SEWAGE NEWS:
- DREAMS OF SEWAGE-PLANT BONANZA DRAW CROWD ("bonanza" means sucking sewage taxpayers money!)
- PREMIER CLARK LOOKS AHEAD WITH PIPELINES, LABOUR ISSUES AT UBCM KEYNOTE (sewage mention)
GENERAL SEWAGE-RELATED NEWS:
- CALIFORNIA: A BATTLE BREWS OVER COASTAL INFRASTRUCTURE
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EVENTS AND PUBLIC ACTIONS COMING UP WITH ARESST:
TOWN HALL MEETING 3 OCTOBER, 7:30PM, ST ANN'S ACADEMY!!
An important and vital ARESST rally with great speakers, panels, question and answer. Opportunity to get a nifty ARESST t-shirt too (suggested donation $20) and to meet our ARESST Board, other members and the inquiring public.
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SEE OUR NEW STOPABADPLAN WEBSITE!!
Thanks to our ARESST member Richard Atwell, ARESST now has a briliant new website that is energizing our campaign!
Stop by and check out our STOPABADPLAN.CA WEBSITE!
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REPORTS ON PAST ARESST ACTIONS:
OUR ARESST MORNING "BANNERING" ON SPECTRUM OVERPASS
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Victoria News
September 27, 2012
CLICK HERE TO SEND LETTER TO VICNEWS
Re: Victoria anti-treatment advocates push back with awareness campaign (News online)
To start, members of the Association for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment (ARESST) would like to make everyone aware that our group is very much pro-treatment.
ARESST advocates for keeping Victoria’s current system of natural, marine-based treatment of Victoria’s wastewater. It is a method of treatment that is cheaper, less complex and produces far less greenhouse gases than the land-based treatment system the Capital Regional District is foisting upon Greater Victoria against the will of a majority of residents.
I would like to also make the writer, Mr. Palmer, aware that our wastewater currently is screened, not filtered, before it is pumped into the outfalls, and that the CRD’s project intends to dig up Victoria neighbourhoods and waterfront to bury a total of 44 kilometres of pipelines, not just 17 km.
Brian Burchill
Oak Bay
http://www.vicnews.com/
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CRD-RELATED SEWAGE NEWS:
DREAMS OF SEWAGE-PLANT BONANZA DRAW CROWD ("bonanza" means sucking sewage taxpayers money!)
Top-notch designs will be sought for 'the mother of all outhouses'
Jeff Bell
Times Colonist
September 29, 2012
Click here to send letter to Times Colonist
The prospect of bidding on contracts to build the capital region's sewage-treatment system packed an information meeting at the Hotel Grand Pacific.
At least 180 people attended the session this week on procurement details for the project.
Jack Hull, interim project director with the Capital Regional District for the next 16 months, said 10 or 11 contracts are expected to be awarded.
He outlined smaller aspects of the system, such as a Clover Point-Ogden Point pipeline, along with more substantial components such as the main McLoughlin Point treatment plant and a biosolids-processing plant tentatively planned for the Hartland landfill. A few other sites for biosolids are also under consideration.
If the plant were to go in at Hartland, twin pipelines about 18 kilometres long would link it to the McLoughlin plant.
Confirmation of funding in July was the last hurdle in terms of proceeding with the project, Hull said.
"I know there's been some concerns expressed - if there's a change of government here or in Ottawa - is there still the commitment to the project? Our understanding is that the funding for the project is a non-political issue that different political parties and groups are committed to."
Hull pegged construction and contingency costs at $549 million, indirect costs such as administration, program management and financing at $221 million and land purchases at $13 million - adding up to the estimated $783-million total. The pivotal McLoughlin Point plant has a price estimate of $210 million on a 1.4-hectare site.
"It's a tight site," Hull said. "That's the site that is available and the logical place to put it given that the existing infrastructure all heads down in that direction."
He acknowledged the plant has a prominent location on the harbour.
"I really want to emphasize that when we do go out to proposal, that we will be looking for innovation. We will be open to other technologies, the only criteria we will be placing on it is that it's got to be proven technology.
"We're looking at least a five-year track record with any particular technology."
Hull noted that one person has previously commented the plant will be "the mother of all outhouses" at the harbour entrance, so a good design will be important.
"Certainly the esthetics of the plant are going to be an important consideration. The last thing we want people saying is 'Oh, there's the sewage treatment plant.' "
Preliminary steps in awarding contracts for various parts of the project should start in the first quarter of 2013, when the process begins for awarding the Craigflower pump station replacement.
Overall, the commissioning period for the project should start in mid-2017, with completion around March of 2018. The project management office is scheduled to be in place this November.
jwbell@timescolonist.com
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/capital_van_isl/story.html?id=90256db9-ffc2-41d4-98c9-176a7dd5cdc9
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Times Colonist
THE CANADIAN PRESS
SEPTEMBER
28, 2012 3:20 PM
Click here to send letter to Times Colonist
VICTORIA — Premier Christy Clark had British Columbia's municipal leaders cheering as she announced labour peace with government workers, plans to accelerate major infrastructure projects and offered fighting words for Alberta on the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Clark's keynote speech Friday at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention included the announcement of a tentative deal with the 27,000-member B.C. Government and Service Employees Union.
She also said her government plans to four-lane the Trans-Canada Highway from Kamloops to the Alberta border, start work on replacing the congested George Massey Tunnel south of Vancouver and speed up road, hospital and sewer projects throughout B.C.
Clark said she will be in Alberta on Monday to meet with Premier Alison Redford to deliver the message that B.C. has serious environmental concerns about the proposed Enbridge Inc. project, which "will not be built, period," if they aren't addressed.
British Columbia has already delivered to Alberta five requirements it wants met before it will consider supporting the project, which would see a pipeline built from Alberta to northwest B.C., for oil shipments to Asia in tankers moving along the coast.
"The bigger issue for us is how do we protect our environment," Clark told delegates at the convention. "We are not going to do it at the expense of our environment."
She said her government will add $509 million over the next 10 years to speed up the ongoing federal-provincial project to four-lane the Trans-Canada Highway from Kamloops east to Alberta. The province has already contributed $141 million over three years to the project.
The George Massey Tunnel, which funnels 80,000 people daily from Vancouver's southern suburbs into the downtown core, needs replacing, said Clark, especially with Vancouver's increasing population and port expansions.
She announced $207 million in new road, school and health projects throughout the province, including school improvements in Nanaimo, Campbell River, Houston, Surrey and Maple Ridge.
Clark said the money to pay for the $207 million in new capital projects came from government-wide savings.
"These are new projects, but this is not new money," she said.
Earlier this month, the Liberals announced a government-wide restraint effort to combat falling revenues in the natural gas sector.
Clark's speech comes one day after Opposition New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix announced he is preparing to dump the province's balanced-budget law if he's elected premier.
Clark has been through a particularly rough period lately, losing her former chief of staff, Ken Boessenkool, who left his post after admitting to an act of unspecified inappropriate behaviour.
Clark has lost several veteran cabinet ministers to political retirement and her Liberals are trailing well behind the New Democrats in public opinion polls.
British Columbians go to the polls next May.
http://www.timescolonist.com/
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GENERAL SEWAGE-RELATED NEWS:
CALIFORNIA: A BATTLE BREWS OVER COASTAL INFRASTRUCTURE
California Agency Wants Sewage Plants, Other Facilities Relocated From Ocean's Threat; Towns Cite Costs, Delays in Projects
Jim Carlton
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2012
MORRO BAY, Calif.—California's Pacific coast is dotted with aging sewage plants and other infrastructure that towns are trying to upgrade. But the need to modernize many of these critical facilities—like the one in this picturesque fishing city—is being delayed by a rethinking of whether the waterfront is the safest place to put them.
For years, officials in Morro Bay, a city of 10,000 about 175 miles north of Los Angeles, have worked to rebuild the city's nearly 60-year-old sewage-treatment plant. The facility sits behind a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Last year, the California Coastal Commission, which regulates development along the state's beaches, challenged the rebuilding permit for the plant. This year, the agency staff recommended the operation be relocated a mile inland for reasons including the threat from a tsunami.
Morro Bay officials say such a move would add up to seven years to the three-year project and 50% more to its estimated $60 million cost, in a community still recovering from the recession. The planned overhaul is awaiting a final decision by the Coastal Commission, which could come as soon as October.
"We live on a shoestring already," said Andrea Lueker, Morro Bay's city manager. "To have anything like that, we just can't absorb it."
The Coastal Commission's push to shift certain aging facilities in a "managed retreat" back from the coastline is being felt beyond Morro Bay. Seaside cities and counties including Ventura, San Francisco, Daly City, San Mateo County and San Luis Obispo County also have been directed by the state agency to relocate or study relocating landfills, highways, bike paths and parking lots further inland, a move that typically adds cost and time to projects.
Charles Lester, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said the agency is pushing towns to move infrastructure inland where practicable, out of concerns including erosion and the effect of rising sea levels due to climate change. "We need to make sure not to put infrastructure in a hazardous location," he said.
Dan Carl, a deputy director of the commission, acknowledged such moves can add expense and time to some projects, but not as much as some critics suggest. "We have to realistically assess what going to an alternative site means," Mr. Carl said.
In San Francisco, where the commission has directed city, state and regional officials to consider relocating a one-mile section of the coastal Great Highway inland because of erosion, officials said they don't blame the agency so much as nature.
Already, erosion from pounding waves at Ocean Beach has resulted in the indefinite closing of one of the highway's two southbound lanes. Further erosion could threaten a nearby sewage-treatment plant, said Jean Walsh, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "We need to protect the vital infrastructure," Ms. Walsh said.
In Morro Bay, local officials began looking to upgrade the sewage-treatment facility in 2003, when the state's Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board demanded the plant be improved to meet federal clean-water standards on treated sewage water discharged into the sea. The plant is run by Morro Bay, which owns it with the Cayucos Sanitary District.
So in 2007, Morro Bay set out to build a new plant adjacent to the existing one. The proposal was opposed by some residents, who were concerned the site sits in the path of a potential tsunami and who said the beachfront—and local economy—would be better served by building up recreation amenities, such as bike paths and picnic areas on the shoreline.
"Do we really want to tie up this area for another 50 years?" said Mike Foster, a local accountant.
At the request of the Coastal Commission, Morro Bay evaluated 17 sites for a new plant, and ended up selecting the existing one as most economical and environmentally friendly. The next best-rated site was a ranch for sale a mile away, where sewage would have to be pumped uphill rather than flow by gravity to the coast, said Dennis Delzeit, manager of the plant-rebuilding project.
That site's added cost for pumping uphill would be borne by area residents and business owners. Among them is Mark Tognazzini, the 58-year-old owner of a seafood restaurant and processing business. Mr. Tognazzini said that according to Morro Bay estimates, the ranch-site proposal could double his water rates to $3,000 a month from $1,500. "It's easy for someone to tell you how to spend your money if they aren't paying the rates," he said.
Opponents of the existing site—including John Diodati, a 36-year-old county administrator—said the city's cost estimates are overblown. "What they're throwing up is doomsday, 'we can't do it' scenarios," Mr. Diodati said.
In July, the Coastal Commission staff declared that the plant shouldn't stay on its existing site. "The proposed project is inconsistent with numerous [state and city policies] including policies related to coastal hazards, public access and recreation," the agency wrote. The commission postponed an Aug. 9 hearing on the matter to at least November.
Plant officials, meanwhile, said they plan to meet with the agency to try to change its mind. "I see no rational justification to move [the plant] inland because of the price tag and the time issues involved," Mr. Delzeit said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
California Agency Wants Sewage Plants, Other Facilities Relocated From Ocean's Threat; Towns Cite Costs, Delays in Projects
Jim Carlton
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2012
MORRO BAY, Calif.—California's Pacific coast is dotted with aging sewage plants and other infrastructure that towns are trying to upgrade. But the need to modernize many of these critical facilities—like the one in this picturesque fishing city—is being delayed by a rethinking of whether the waterfront is the safest place to put them.
For years, officials in Morro Bay, a city of 10,000 about 175 miles north of Los Angeles, have worked to rebuild the city's nearly 60-year-old sewage-treatment plant. The facility sits behind a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Last year, the California Coastal Commission, which regulates development along the state's beaches, challenged the rebuilding permit for the plant. This year, the agency staff recommended the operation be relocated a mile inland for reasons including the threat from a tsunami.
Morro Bay officials say such a move would add up to seven years to the three-year project and 50% more to its estimated $60 million cost, in a community still recovering from the recession. The planned overhaul is awaiting a final decision by the Coastal Commission, which could come as soon as October.
"We live on a shoestring already," said Andrea Lueker, Morro Bay's city manager. "To have anything like that, we just can't absorb it."
The Coastal Commission's push to shift certain aging facilities in a "managed retreat" back from the coastline is being felt beyond Morro Bay. Seaside cities and counties including Ventura, San Francisco, Daly City, San Mateo County and San Luis Obispo County also have been directed by the state agency to relocate or study relocating landfills, highways, bike paths and parking lots further inland, a move that typically adds cost and time to projects.
Charles Lester, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said the agency is pushing towns to move infrastructure inland where practicable, out of concerns including erosion and the effect of rising sea levels due to climate change. "We need to make sure not to put infrastructure in a hazardous location," he said.
Dan Carl, a deputy director of the commission, acknowledged such moves can add expense and time to some projects, but not as much as some critics suggest. "We have to realistically assess what going to an alternative site means," Mr. Carl said.
In San Francisco, where the commission has directed city, state and regional officials to consider relocating a one-mile section of the coastal Great Highway inland because of erosion, officials said they don't blame the agency so much as nature.
Already, erosion from pounding waves at Ocean Beach has resulted in the indefinite closing of one of the highway's two southbound lanes. Further erosion could threaten a nearby sewage-treatment plant, said Jean Walsh, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "We need to protect the vital infrastructure," Ms. Walsh said.
In Morro Bay, local officials began looking to upgrade the sewage-treatment facility in 2003, when the state's Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board demanded the plant be improved to meet federal clean-water standards on treated sewage water discharged into the sea. The plant is run by Morro Bay, which owns it with the Cayucos Sanitary District.
So in 2007, Morro Bay set out to build a new plant adjacent to the existing one. The proposal was opposed by some residents, who were concerned the site sits in the path of a potential tsunami and who said the beachfront—and local economy—would be better served by building up recreation amenities, such as bike paths and picnic areas on the shoreline.
"Do we really want to tie up this area for another 50 years?" said Mike Foster, a local accountant.
At the request of the Coastal Commission, Morro Bay evaluated 17 sites for a new plant, and ended up selecting the existing one as most economical and environmentally friendly. The next best-rated site was a ranch for sale a mile away, where sewage would have to be pumped uphill rather than flow by gravity to the coast, said Dennis Delzeit, manager of the plant-rebuilding project.
That site's added cost for pumping uphill would be borne by area residents and business owners. Among them is Mark Tognazzini, the 58-year-old owner of a seafood restaurant and processing business. Mr. Tognazzini said that according to Morro Bay estimates, the ranch-site proposal could double his water rates to $3,000 a month from $1,500. "It's easy for someone to tell you how to spend your money if they aren't paying the rates," he said.
Opponents of the existing site—including John Diodati, a 36-year-old county administrator—said the city's cost estimates are overblown. "What they're throwing up is doomsday, 'we can't do it' scenarios," Mr. Diodati said.
In July, the Coastal Commission staff declared that the plant shouldn't stay on its existing site. "The proposed project is inconsistent with numerous [state and city policies] including policies related to coastal hazards, public access and recreation," the agency wrote. The commission postponed an Aug. 9 hearing on the matter to at least November.
Plant officials, meanwhile, said they plan to meet with the agency to try to change its mind. "I see no rational justification to move [the plant] inland because of the price tag and the time issues involved," Mr. Delzeit said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
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