CRD SEWAGE NEWS THIS WEEK
- Up Sewage Creek With Too Many Paddlers
- EASTSIDE CONVERSATION ADVERT
LETTERS
- Time is of the essence for sewage-treatment plan (Langley)
- Spend sewage money on rapid transit (Nonen)
- We have time to challenge sewage regulations (Peck)
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Up Sewage Creek With Too Many Paddlers
Bruce Carter
Business Examine
12 May 2015
VICTORIA - Taxpayers are already paying for sewage treatment. The collection of funds are stranded for a project that has stalled cold. The bureaucratic processes and political maneuvering have succeeded in ensuring we don’t have a viable plan to solve this issue, but we do have a viable way to be taxed for it. It is the taxpayer that is stranded up Sewage Creek where ironically the challenge isn’t too few paddles, but too many all pulling in different directions.
The ongoing discussion of Sewage Treatment continues. The CRD Committee has been successful in negotiating a yearlong extension with the federal government regarding a portion of the funding ($83.4 million) committed towards this project. That’s great, but what about the rest of the promised federal and provincial funds? Will it still be patiently waiting until the CRD once again starts putting shovels in the ground? Has there been active lobbying to avoid federal fines that will be levied in the event there is failure to complete the project by 2020?
There are two subcommittees, Eastside and Westside, who are taking a separate approach to reach the same goal, Secondary Treatment for Sewage. The Chair of the Committee, Nils Jensen, was in place for less than six months and has been replaced by the Mayor of Victoria, Lisa Helps. There is no doubt that during the campaign period, Jensen and Helps did not agree on Sewage Treatment Approaches and this change of Committee Chair likely reflects that disagreement and signals a new direction for sewage treatment.
The Committee is examining alternative locations for both McLoughlin and Hartland and have allocated funding for that process.
The result of our efforts to build secondary sewage treatment is a cheque for $46 million as we continue to rack up cost delays at about $1 million per month. We have two new subcommittees, a new chair, an extension to our funding, a willingness to spend more money on planning and yet we haven’t moved the project forward in the years since this process first began. Indeed, we are spinning in a sewage vortex. In the background, we have the CRD that has approved its 2015 budget of $203 million and the process of processes continues.
We need to increase our sewage treatment from primary to secondary because it’s the right thing to do. We need to put much more effort into managing a project efficiently and limiting the inevitable cost overruns with public sector construction. We have studied this project ad nauseam. We need to build consensus and build secondary treatment.
- Bruce Carter is the CEO, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.
VICTORIA - Taxpayers are already paying for sewage treatment. The collection of funds are stranded for a project that has stalled cold. The bureaucratic processes and political maneuvering have succeeded in ensuring we don’t have a viable plan to solve this issue, but we do have a viable way to be taxed for it. It is the taxpayer that is stranded up Sewage Creek where ironically the challenge isn’t too few paddles, but too many all pulling in different directions.
The ongoing discussion of Sewage Treatment continues. The CRD Committee has been successful in negotiating a yearlong extension with the federal government regarding a portion of the funding ($83.4 million) committed towards this project. That’s great, but what about the rest of the promised federal and provincial funds? Will it still be patiently waiting until the CRD once again starts putting shovels in the ground? Has there been active lobbying to avoid federal fines that will be levied in the event there is failure to complete the project by 2020?
There are two subcommittees, Eastside and Westside, who are taking a separate approach to reach the same goal, Secondary Treatment for Sewage. The Chair of the Committee, Nils Jensen, was in place for less than six months and has been replaced by the Mayor of Victoria, Lisa Helps. There is no doubt that during the campaign period, Jensen and Helps did not agree on Sewage Treatment Approaches and this change of Committee Chair likely reflects that disagreement and signals a new direction for sewage treatment.
The Committee is examining alternative locations for both McLoughlin and Hartland and have allocated funding for that process.
The result of our efforts to build secondary sewage treatment is a cheque for $46 million as we continue to rack up cost delays at about $1 million per month. We have two new subcommittees, a new chair, an extension to our funding, a willingness to spend more money on planning and yet we haven’t moved the project forward in the years since this process first began. Indeed, we are spinning in a sewage vortex. In the background, we have the CRD that has approved its 2015 budget of $203 million and the process of processes continues.
We need to increase our sewage treatment from primary to secondary because it’s the right thing to do. We need to put much more effort into managing a project efficiently and limiting the inevitable cost overruns with public sector construction. We have studied this project ad nauseam. We need to build consensus and build secondary treatment.
- Bruce Carter is the CEO, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.
EASTSIDE CONVERSATION ADVERT
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LETTERS:
Time is of the essence for sewage-treatment plan (Langley)
TIMES COLONIST
MAY 18, 2015
Re: “Potential waste-plant sites are all over the map,” May 13.
East-side public meetings started at the end of April and will continue through May and into June. The focus has been on public values, attitudes and concerns related to sewage treatment concepts, technologies, and now site-location criteria.
“Preferred solution sets” will be completed in June. These will gauge public support for high levels of sewage treatment, for water recycling and resource recovery, distributed rather than centralized systems, and site criteria that minimize social and environmental impacts. All hoped for at reasonable cost. The means of putting the pieces together into a working system and the actual long-term cost implications of the public preferences will be missing. Total participation at the public meetings might be a tenth of one per cent of the general public.
I believe most Capital Regional District residents see their personal responsibilities for sewage treatment ending when they flush. Beyond that point, a treatment scheme that meets federal and provincial standards with maximum senior government funding and minimum long-term local taxpayer cost would receive strong support if the general public were widely canvassed.
The new independent technical assessments to be launched in July should include such a baseline scheme. A Clover Point plus Ogden Point system for the east side and a Macaulay plus McLoughlin (capacity reduced by 60 per cent) system for the west side could well be the winner. Selection and costing of a specific overall treatment scheme, incorporating recommended technologies and sites for the entire core area, has to be completed for CRD board approval in September.
David Langley
Victoria
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Spend sewage money on rapid transit (Nonen)
MAY 20, 2015
Re: “CRD urged to disband Seaterra sewage body,” May 16.
Disbanding Seaterra is a good start. The next step is to lobby federal and provincial politicians to exempt the Capital Regional District from recent sewage-treatment laws that address a problem that simply does not exist here.
Then the hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for unnecessary sewage treatment can be used to fund new public-transit initiatives — such as light rail — that will actually benefit the environment.
Dave Nonen
Victoria
http://www.timescolonist.com/
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We have time to challenge sewage regulations (Peck)
TIMES COLONIST
MAY 22, 2015
Re: “Time is short for sewage plan,” editorial, May 14.
The public should be concerned about what the east side and west side sewage treatment planning committees are going to recommend. The community might come up with great ideas as to what could be done. However, when the tough decisions have to be made, and the Capital Regional District cannot deliver on its suggestions because of funding or other constraints, there will be a very disappointed or even angry community.
I am concerned that the CRD has already spent $69.4 million on planning, including land acquisition. This is a huge project — it will be 10 times the cost of the Blue Bridge project in Victoria with its cost overrun problems.
There is still potential for the CRD to mount a legal challenge to the federal wastewater-systems effluent regulations on the scientific basis of taking a “one size fits all” approach in the regulations. There is a persuasive argument. If the project results in an unaffordable burden on taxpayers (local, provincial and federal) for no benefit to the overall environment (land, marine and global) why build land-based sewage treatment at all? It is not needed.
It would be a great benefit to the taxpayers and the environment if the CRD obtained a waiver from the federal wastewater-systems effluent regulations based on the many studies showing the present practice has a minimal impact on our unique marine environment.
Shaun Peck
Victoria
http://www.timescolonist.com/
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