5667 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

No kidding, hey? All it took was a slanted article in MacLean's and all of a sudden $1.2 billion dollars is needed to keep Victoria from destroying the world.

[VicHockeyFan]

I can't vote here.

The closest to how I feel is this:

Out of the question, too expensive for Greater Victoria.

But I want to vote:

This is unnecessary at any cost.

Jeff, you can go to the top of the class at the CFAX pollmakers course.

[VicHockeyFan]

No matter how you slice it; sending human excrement in vast quantities in to a body of pristine water just seems wrong. How would we feel if Seattle, Vancouver and Kelowna used large pipes to discharge their untreated sewage in to the Juan De Fuca strait?

Whales, fish, seals, otters and plankton **** in the sea, it's not a problem. Remember excrement is only .07% of the stream. 99.93% is nice fresh water.

[Holden West]

We're lucky we didn't implement treatment ten years ago when the technology was crude.

Maybe we should wait another ten years until technology is available to effectively deal with the much more harmful chemicals and pharmacueticals that end up in sewage. Poop is the least of our worries. It's the drugs, heavy metals, PCBs and other assorted chemicals that are dumped and eventually get into the food chain and [url=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/brokenpromises/288098_toxic10.asp:476bf]seriously mess things up[/url:476bf].

[Rorschach]

It's a complete waste. Let's condition the additional taxes only to those who believe it's needed and you'll find out that almost no one really does believe it's needed.

When you consider that sea life contributes about 500 times the bulk of effulent that Victorians produce, there just isn't a problem. Even with the billion dollar treatment, they will still be dumping sewage. Nature has taken care of all God's creatures for millions of years.

Our food supply does not come from the dumping grounds of the Juan De Fuca strait. If it did, we'd already be suffering the ill effects we are supposedly trying to "prevent" now.

[G-Man]

It is the best thing since sliced bread. I am a homeowner and I welcome the extra 900 bucks a year tax so that whales to don't have to eat my crap.

[Ms. B. Havin]

I hesitate to get into this thread after the whole climate change huffing & puffing... But, here goes: I was surprised to find out that the stories I heard as a kid, about sewage getting flushed into the ocean, weren't just a rumour, but were true. That's the sort of "treatment" that works when an area contains just a handful of people eating mostly natural food and washing their hair once every two weeks. It doesn't make sense to think that you can keep growing a population in a metro area, one that for the most part showers daily, uses all sorts of products (I use so much stuff on my hair, it's a wonder I don't wear a sign that says "flammable"), shampoos daily or every other day, takes supplements & takes medications that get peed out, uses various lotions and deodorants and whatnots that get rinsed off into the waste water with the next shower, and eats far less untreated food than food that has been treated or processed with chemicals, etc. etc., and then think that you can keep flushing all of that waste into the ocean.

The $1.2 billion price tag is staggering, true, and I wish I knew more about this to form an opinion as to whether it's that high because of construction cost inflation, or because we're looking at mega-plants, or what? I like ressen's idea ("...divide up the money and have treatment done right at the source..."), which sounds a bit crazy but actually makes far more sense than huge plants. Ok, maybe not individual composting toilets and gray water systems in every household, but what about neighbourhood facilities? At the same time, maybe that would end up as expensive.

That said, if we build something and then discharge the water, which still contains the chemicals (as per that Seattle Post-Intelligencer article Holden referenced a couple of posts up), then that's really defeating the purpose. Part of me wants to think that the high price tag is due to "our" plants producing water that really is clean, which then should get reused, of course. It shouldn't just get discharged.

It wasn't just a Maclean's article and a couple of appearances by Mr.Floatie that got treatment on the radar, though. People have been really, really upset by this for years and years and years, and the article(s) and Floatie appearances were really just symptoms of how frustrated so many people were.

Like the climate change arguments, you'll find scientists on both sides arguing their case. I'm more convinced by the ones who are dissecting the plant & animal life in the Strait and the Sound, and finding biological changes that are actually pretty horrifying when you think about them (and I don't scare easily). It's just not good householding to throw one's garbage all over the place, and householding is what ecology actually means. I don't do that in my own house, and it just seems nuts that we should treat the larger eco-system beyond our individual doorsteps as big garbage dumps, whether we're one person, a community, an industry, a country. Even the proverbial pig doesn't do that. And in nature, nothing is wasted: there is no garbage, it all gets reused for energy (but not for harm; if there are harms in excess, the system collapses). That's the model we should emulate. My 2-cents.

[Mike K.]

It wasn't just a Maclean's article and a couple of appearances by Mr.Floatie that got treatment on the radar, though. People have been really, really upset by this for years and years and years, and the article(s) and Floatie appearances were really just symptoms of how frustrated so many people were.

I don't think emotion should justify an expenditure of a billion dollars. And what are we to do with the by-product (sludge) of treatment plants?

For those who feel that Victoria is a sinner and the rest of Canada is comprised of saintly towns and cities, let's talk about the disposal of household and industrial garbage across the entire country. Even our big brother, Vancouver, is contemplating sending its trash to small towns in the interior of BC and the rubbish from the Golden Horseshoe is a hot debate in Ontario and even the US.

In Victoria's case, if our poop isn't really the problem and chemicals are the real cause for concern, then lets start by creating legislation around the use of unnecessary chemicals and preservatives in our foodstuffs and products. That's tackling the issue at the source and not through outrageously expensive treatment facilities.

[m0nkyman]

Science vs Emotion.

That's the real debate.

There is no real science demanding 1.2Billion dollars worth of sewage treatment that I am aware of. There is theatrics and 'common sense' knee jerk emotionality that poop in the ocean is bad.

[renthefinn]

The funny thing I always hear is that there's science on either side, but no-one from the pro-treatment side has really conducted any scientific research, there's been studies of previously done studies, but until someone brings up some proof of harm, why should Victorians pay to make people feel happy about themselves?

[gumgum]

There was an elaborate study done recently.
Does anybody remember the name of the body that did it?

[gumgum]

By Shiela Potter
Goldtream News Gazette
November 16, 2005

As Greater Victoria's raw sewage debate gains steam, the question bubbles to the surface - haven't we gone through this before?

What has changed since 1992 when there was a region-wide municipal referendum on the issue, and the majority voted against shelling out for a sewage treatment plant?

Now, new evidence has emerged from Royal Roads University.

In 2003, Dusan Markovic measured the amount of heavy metals in Victoria Bight, the large basin formed between Clover Point and William Head, extending 8 km off shore from Victoria Harbour.

Markovic's study was his master's thesis for the environment and management department.

His work challenges conventional wisdom that came out of a 1992 report that said Greater Victoria's sewage is causing limited environmental damage.

In 1992, over growing concerns and criticisms, the Capital Regional District hired EVS Consultants to monitor and measure the effects of the raw sewage pumped from the toilets of Greater Victoria to two outfalls in Juan de Fuca Strait, about a kilometre off Victoria Harbour (Macaulay Point outfall) and Clover Point.

The ensuing EVS Consultants' study, Sediment and Related Investigations off the Macaulay and Clover Point Sewage Outfalls, has been credited with swinging the vote against building a multi-million dollar secondary treatment facility in the 1992 referendum.

The report has also been the main source of scientific information for critics and decision-makers ever since.
Even at a recent forum sponsored by the Victoria Sewage Alliance, Sierra Legal Defence biologist John Werring hashed out criticisms of the 1992 study in his lecture, "The Story you Haven't Heard."

As a geographer who previously worked with ocean sediment consultants GeoSea, Markovic suspected that the EVS Consultants' limited testing within two kilometres of the outfalls was inadequate.

Metals such as copper bind to fine silt, travel with currents and settle in still waters. The fresh water from sewage pipes would "rapidly rise and spread with the current, so why they (EVS Consultants) took samples just below the outfalls, I don't know. It is peculiar," Markovic said.

Where EVS Consultants took 25 samples, Markovic took 360.

Markovic found copper, zinc and chromium contamination throughout Victoria Bight.

His statistical analysis points to Macaulay Point as the source of the metals, not storm sewages, marinas or past industry in the Victoria Harbour.

Macaulay Point draws sewage from Colwood, Esquimalt, View Royal, Langford, Vic West and most of Saanich, plus leachate from the Hartland landfill.

The metals are coming from industrial processes like chromium electroplating, but also from the copper water pipes, Markovic suspects.

Of course the word "contamination" is very subjective, he said.

By Swedish standards, most of Markovic's test area lights up with unacceptable levels of copper contamination, requiring immediate attention.

By B.C's Ministry of Environment standards, there are isolated hot spots of contamination. By CRD standards, none of Markovic's samples are contaminated at all.

Markovic is convinced that levels of heavy metal he is seeing are higher than natural levels expected given the local geology so, in that sense, the metals are a contamination.

"Heavy metals are a good indication of human pollution. While heavy metals do exist naturally, the amounts we are dealing with don't come from the background level," he said.

But is it harmful? That is the question.

"Depending on the amount, it will kill even us," he said. "The dose makes the poison."

Marine invertebrates are particularly sensitive to copper poisoning.

Markovic thinks the CRD should re-visit its definition of contamination. Currently, they use what is called an "effect level" to define contamination. At the effect level, 100 per cent of the marine test organisms die or suffer serious chronic effects. Markovic noted that once you get to that level, it is a little too late.

Markovic suggested using a threshold level for the level of copper concentration just below that which harms the health of the marine test subjects.

"The idea is to stay below the threshold," he said. For Markovic, that means building a secondary treatment plant.

© Copyright 2005 Goldstream Gazette

[ressen]

If the ocean was warm enough to swim in; I don't think any one would agree with dumping our **** in the water so that it can flow back up on the beach. A number of years ago in Sidney Australia they had this very same problem' only there they had to close down the beaches at times for swimming due to the high amount of sewage in the water. Some cities are treating their sewage water and turning it back in to drinking water. What if Victoria lay inland somewhere and it was decided that a large pipe could be laid to pump our sewage out to the strait because it would be the cheapest option and no one is able to prove that there are any harmful effects in doing so. Perhaps we could charge other cities to use the pipe as well to get rid of their sewage. While we are at it maybe we should go back to dumping our garbage offshore too as it will save space at the dump.

[G-Man]

Look we can't back out of this just because it costs 1.2 Billion. That is the cost of procrastination. It is our crap I don't care if it goes through a 1 inch screen it is wrong!! Even if there is no eviromental benefit which I highly doubt. Think of the increase in tourism over a twenty year life span.

Currently tourism is a 1 billion dollar business in Victoria every year. If sewage treatment increases tourism by 2 percent. That is an extra 20 million dollars every year. Over a twenty year period that is 400 million dollars bought into the economy. And that is just the benefit from tourism.

Throw some economic benefit in there because perhaps some businesses won't move because of the lack of treatment and some cannot becuae ther is no treatment and that would increase the benefit more.

Add in some creative uses of the off-gases to generate electricity or heating and over twenty years this will be a modest investment.

Why no one is talking about this as an economic boom rather than bust is beyond me.

Think beyond the environment.

[VicHockeyFan]

No one seems to mind septic fields. Where do they deliver the **** to when they pump them out anyway? All the liquid goes into the ground along with any chemicals and metals etc.

Lets make some place one huge septic field. Like Esquimalt. Vancouver can use Surrey.

[G-Man]

Apparently you can no longer drink the water in Sproat lake due to all the old septic fields.

[Holden West]

This is probably not worth implementing unless you do the following:

-Make the plant carbon neutral at least, or better so that the energy created by the waste is used to power the operation. Excess energy can be sold off.

-Extract as much toxins from the sludge as possible. Technology exists to remove metals etc. from sludge. Burying it is pointless.

I have a feeling Victoria will cheap out on this as usual.

[m0nkyman]

Why no one is talking about this as an economic boom rather than bust is beyond me.

Because throwing half a gun registry at this is asinine and pointless given the lack of a scientific basis for doing it?

[gumgum]

I gotta agree that if we can't prevent the metals and other toxins, it's pointless. They are the real threat. Secondary treatment isn't enough.
I'd pay double my 570 buck share if I knew the real poisons were filtered. And I mean that.

[VicHockeyFan]

I gotta agree that if we can't prevent the metals and other toxins, it's pointless. They are the real threat. Secondary treatment isn't enough.
I'd pay double my 570 buck share if I knew the real poisons were filtered. And I mean that.

That's right. Sealife can eat our **** just fine - after all, it's stuff we ate in the first place. And no one swims in the ocean around here, and even if they did, it's not like it's washing up on our shore.