5673 replies to this topic

[todd]

“ The District of Oak Bay will be completing an emergency repair of a sewer lateral on Oak Bay Ave between Foul Bay Rd and Mitchell St. See Figure 1 below. The repair project is scheduled to start Monday, October 16th and is expected to be finished within 4 days.

For public safety and for the safety of District staff, Public Works will be closing Oak Bay Avenue to non-local traffic from Mitchell St to Foul Bay Rd. Barricades will be placed on Oak Bay Ave at Foul Bay and West of the entrance to the parking lot at 2014 Oak Bay Ave. Detour routes have been set up down Mitchell and Elgin Rd. Refer to Figure 2. “




https://www.oakbay.c...sure-mon-oct-16

Edited by todd, 15 October 2023 - 07:09 PM.

[Mike K.]

That’s a great heads-up, thank you.

[todd]

The Capital Regional District is advising residents to avoid entering the waters between Hollywood Place and Cook Street including Clover Point due to wastewater overflows. Melting snow and rainfall has caused combined storm water and wastewater overflows along some shorelines in Greater Victoria on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, posing a health risk.[/size]


https://www.timescol...oreline-6297629

^

Will this problem reemerge this year?

Edited by todd, 22 December 2023 - 06:27 PM.

[Mike K.]

My mom’s City of Victoria water and sewer bill has these rate changes that occurred as of Oct 1:

Sewer Rate increase from $1.83 to $2.62 per unit
CRD Sewer Rate increase from $3.81 to $5.45 per unit

Both up 43%.

What is behind this massive increase?

[Victoria Watcher]

Mr. Floatie.

He’s the *****.

[Nparker]

...What is behind this massive increase?

[spanky123]

My mom’s City of Victoria water and sewer bill has these rate changes that occurred as of Oct 1:

Sewer Rate increase from $1.83 to $2.62 per unit
CRD Sewer Rate increase from $3.81 to $5.45 per unit

Both up 43%.

What is behind this massive increase?

 

Isn't this to pay for the sewage treatment plant? I seemed to recall the plan being escalating rate increases for about 10 years.

[Nparker]

I wish the people who make these decisions would just shut up about "housing affordability". It's clearly just a catch phrase to them, since every level of government keeps enacting policies and regulations that have the exact opposite effect.

[Victoria Watcher]

Oak Bay says it now has the funding to finally address outdated underground infrastructure in the Uplands neighbourhood, where sewage from homes and stormwater from street drains mix and can spill into the ocean during periods of heavy rainfall.

 

The district said Thursday that funding from the federal and provincial governments will allow it to replace the single-pipe system that was built nearly a century ago.

 

Just over $8.8 million will go into the sewer separation project, with the federal government ­providing $3.54 million, the ­province $2.94 million and Oak Bay $2.36 million.

 

The Uplands sewer system was built in the 1930s using a single pipe to collect sewage from toilets, grey water from showers and sinks, and storm water from foundation drains and catch basins in the roads, discharging into the ocean at the ends of Humber and Rutland roads.

 

In the early 1990s, the combined systems were redirected into new Capital Regional District pump stations at Humber and Rutland roads and pumped into a trunk sewer main on Beach Drive.

 

However, during large storms, the flow into the pump stations could at times exceed the capacity of the pumps and the excess effluent discharges through the old outfalls into the ocean.

 

“During heavy rainfall, combined systems are susceptible to overflow, causing effluent to be discharged into local bodies of water,” the district said in a statement.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...o-ocean-8316634

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 16 February 2024 - 04:34 AM.

[Mike K.]

We talked long ago about higher levels of government eventually stepping in.

[Victoria Watcher]

Capital region residents are invited to join a virtual open house Tuesday to learn about and share views on long-term use of biosolids before a report is sent to the province in a few months.

 

It’s a complex and divisive issue with challenging timelines and unclear solutions.

 

“The board is in a really tough position right now,” Colin Plant, board chair, said Monday.

 

Citizens can sign up for the 6 p.m. meeting; it will be recorded for viewing later. The district is running a public survey closing March 6 on the topic.

 

The province requires a long-term plan for beneficial use of biosolids, a byproduct of sewage treatment, to be submitted by mid-June. The solution is supposed to be operational by the beginning of 2026.

 

The district’s board will take into account results from the survey, staff recommendations, provincial environmental regulations, a survey to be carried out by a third-party, and board preferences, Plant said.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...-region-8328315

 

 

 

 

This has been a “very political issue” around the board table, Plant said. The board is split on the best way to handle biosolids.

 

Even so, the province is requiring the district to look at land application as a option in its long-term plan.

 

“The rest of the province, every other area in B.C. that I’m aware of, does have land application as one of their methods of dealing with biosolids,” Plant said. But at this point, the district is unable to point to a definitive workable option, he said. “We are in a bit of a challenging situation.”

 

Those opposed to putting biosolids on land point to scientific literature backing up their concerns about the impacts of various chemicals.

 

Meanwhile, because it has nowhere else to send them, the CRD is ­burying biosolids at Hartland landfill, which is against provincial rules.

 

The original plan to ship biosolids to a Richmond plant to be used as fuel in the production of cement fell through.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 February 2024 - 03:19 AM.

[lanforod]

So, uplands will support condos and high rises with a new sewer! Let's go!

[Victoria Watcher]

The biosolids are piling up in the Capital Regional District with few options in the short term other than Hartland Landfill to bury the remnants of sewage treatment.

 

Of the 2,908 tonnes of biosolids produced last year, the CRD put 2,233 tonnes into controlled-waste trenches in the landfill with other hazardous materials. About 680 tonnes were shipped to a quarry reclamation site in Cassidy, south of Nanaimo, and the remainder — just 67 tonnes — went to the on-again, off-again operations of a Lafarge cement facility in Richmond to fire its kiln.

 

Now the CRD is talking with another Nanaimo-area private quarry about taking some more biosolids, which isn’t sitting well with its counterparts to the north.

 

“It limits our options with our own beneficial-use strategy [for biosolids],” Vanessa Craig, chair of the Regional District of Nanaimo, said in an interview Thursday.

 

She said the Nanaimo district has a successful land-application strategy in its own region and suggested the CRD do the same, adding that trucking the biosolids north only adds to greenhouse gas emissions.

 

In a letter to the CRD board last month, Craig requested the “CRD board cease considering land application within the RDN as a viable option for biosolids generated in the capital region.” The letter said Nanaimo is concerned that the CRD’s activities may limit the district’s options as its population continues to grow.

 

Nanaimo has been using biosolids as fertilizer on forested lands for about 30 years. The district currently spreads its sewage treatment residuals through a fertilization program on private lands managed by Mosaic about 12 kilometres northwest of the city, and has recently moved on to a new application site eight kilometres to the south known as Blackjack Ridge along Nanaimo River Road and the Nanaimo Lakes.

 

 

https://www.timescol...options-8493227

 

 

 

 

We spend and spent considerable amounts of money to treat the sewgae, then we just sprinkle it around on the land.  Almost seems like letting it go well out into the massive ocean would not be more damaging to anything.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 March 2024 - 04:43 AM.

[dasmo]

Can’t wipe their own ass but they can control the climate….

[Matt R.]

The amount of money government wastes is just absolutely staggering. Mind boggling.

[Mike K.]

Even the layman is starting to understand why corporate tax credits are so crucial to wealth growth in this country. Corporations don’t mess around, every cost is scrutinized and every investment assessed, generally speaking and by and large. There has to be return or purpose for any pursuit.

Then there are government investments. Billions of dollars disappear, with no tangible outcomes or long term benefits to society.

How many billions have been spent on fixing the ‘housing crisis?’ When the solution is simple: get government out of the way so enough housing relative to population growth can be built.

But no, even more bureaucracy is being created as a solution to a problem we didn’t have until government created it.

In the last seven years, the Trudeau government went from telling small business owners they have to pay their ‘fair share’ in taxes, to hundreds of millions of dollars disappearing into pockets of government investment beneficiaries at the hands of dubious receivers with no quantifiable deliverables. Anyone remember the WE Charity? Now we have the staggering failure of the ArriveCan app. How many others are there?

[Victoria Watcher]

The Capital Regional District is warning Mount Work Regional Park users that routine maintenance at the Hartland Landfill residuals treatment plant will generate “intermittent odours” until mid April.

 

Crews began routine maintenance at the facility on Wednesday, which is expected to be complete on April 17, the district said.

 

“Facility operators and CRD staff are making every effort to limit the source and impact of the odours and will continue to monitor the odours as work proceeds,” the CRD said in a statement.

 

People on Willis Point Road may also be affected by odours, the district said.

 

The $126.8-million facility, completed in 2020, uses micro-organisms in airtight digestion chambers and an industrial dryer to generate biosolids from the capital region’s sewage system.

 

The resulting biosolid pellets have been accumulating in the landfill at a rate of about 10 tonnes a day after a previous plan to burn the pellets as fuel in a Richmond cement plant largely fell through.

 

Some biosolids have been sent to a gravel extraction quarry near Cassidy, where biosolids being stored after being mixed with sand.

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...rd-says-8531825

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 March 2024 - 01:24 AM.

[Matt R.]

How long until we are just dumping these into the ocean?

[aastra]

At least this time around we'll be dumping in an informed and enlightened manner, unlike before.

[Matt R.]

Load them onto a cargo plane, drop them in the middle of the ocean or over our vast forests. Nobody would even notice.