I’m tired of hearing and reading about our sewage treatment debacle for that’s what it surely is. I was going to say we, but it is they: our Capital Regional District leaders who have spent tens of millions of dollars on staff time, studies and land and they still don’t know what to do. Now they want to put the brakes on, but the car isn’t even out of the garage yet.
I say we should divert the present outfall to where it can be pumped into barges or ships and sold, as is, to the highest bidder and let someone else treat it. It would save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and bring in a revenue stream.
There’s a few problems with treating our sewage locally, apart from the fact that the group we have running the show right now have come up with nothing after six or so years.
No one’s going to want it built in their backyard. It will diminish property values, smell or no smell – it’s the psychology of living near a sewage treatment plant. Why build a plant with such a large footprint when land is at such a premium here (possibly future tax-generating land)?
Piping sludge out to Hartland will involve incredible amounts of environmental damage in the construction. Routing would have to be planned so as to diminish impact and minimize the inconvenience of having construction going on for years. If there should be a spill or leak, better it be on sea than land because that’s where it’s already going.
We could use the saved money to repair broken infrastructure and start to deal with ground water run off and see if we could get some of the provincial and federal government funding diverted to that cause, or just keep the savings to keep taxes lower.
Bob Broughton
Victoria