BBC News, 16 December 2011

Guernsey does not need to build a full sewage treatment plant, according to a report into the impact of pumping the waste out to sea.

UK firm Metoc investigated the potential cost and benefits of additional sewage treatment.

It found a treatment plant, estimated at a cost of £100m over 25 years, would provide no environmental benefit.

Public Services Minister Bernard Flouquet said the report showed nature provided effective sewage treatment.

He said the current system met most European and international standards.

At the moment waste water, including sewage, is screened before being discharged from the Belle Greve pumping station into the Little Russel, about one mile offshore via the main long sea outfall.

The States approved an £11m upgrade to the existing station on Thursday to improve the screening process.

‘May be unpalatable’

The £200,000 report found the only requirement the island does not currently meet could be achieved by installing a new long sea outfall, at a cost of £6-8m, which is set to be approved in January.

It also concluded the current method had no adverse impact on bathing water quality at beaches outside Belle Greve, or on local shell fisheries.

The report recommended continued monitoring of the impact and changing international requirements.

Deputy Flouquet said the studies were commissioned to identify the best method for adopting full sewage treatment.

‘Strong views’

He said: “The current method of dealing with sewage may be unpalatable to a lot of us, but if it currently meets international standards you have to question what rationale there is for spending such large amounts of money to implement further treatment.

“However, this is an issue which we know many people have strong views about, so we need to have an informed debate. The scientific work that has been carried out will assist with that.”

The estimated cost of £100m for a full sewage treatment plant was based on a similar UK scheme.

It included construction costs of £45-55m and annual costs of £2m, but did not include a budget to buy the land needed for the building or any interest payments needed for any loans.

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Presentation to the CRD’s Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee on November 24th 2010

by Dr Shaun Peck

Dr. Shaun Peck, Public Health Consultant

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you again.

I will address to-day agenda items # 5 Resource Recovery use plan and #7 The Macaulay and Clover Point Wastewater and Marine Environment Annual Report.  I would like to complement staff on these two excellent reports.  The first one answers many questions that have been in my mind since hearing from your consultants. Many of the concerns that I had are addressed in the summaries or may be included in contract documents. The agenda items can be accessed via:

http://www.crd.bc.ca/agendas/corearealiquidwastem_/2010_/lw11nov242010agenda/lw11nov242010agenda.pdf

You have been informed by your consultants that you may expect to receive revenues of $2 Million per year from sending dried sewage sludge to cement kilns. This I have determined is far from the truth. I personally spoke to LaFarge and they informed me that a) they would not consider receiving the biosoldis unless there were other sources to make it economic and b) Paying for the sludge was just not on the cards – they would need to be paid. I am glad to see that this error is not in to-day’s report. It does mean that the current advertised annual revenue of $3.1 Million needs to be reduced to $1.1 Million.  The potential revenue generation from disposal of the biosolids is hypothetical.

On November 10^th you were informed by your consultants that sewage treatment plants create a noxious, odourous concentrated sludge that is considered a dangerous material and is a Public Health risk to sewage plant workers. (This I completely agree with). Therefore you need to put in extra treatment to treat something you did not need to create in the first place. The consultants are therefore recommending thermophilic anaerobic digesters to produce pathogen free biosolids. This will require a great deal of energy as it does in the present Saanich Peninsular Sewage Treatment plant.

Off Victoria the Ocean treats the screened effluent naturally by biologic and chemical processes after passing through the deep sea outfalls with their diffusers. (It is not dilution – there is an active biological and a chemical process that occurs). On land the treatment plants concentrate the effluent into this noxious, odourous substance. A great deal of energy is later used to dewater the sludge or biosolids as it is planned that they will be thermally dried to increase the solids content to about 95%. The dried biosolids will weigh about 15 tonnes/day.

There have been recent developments in the US related to the treatment of sludge.  In the US (whose regulations do not apply to Canada but are often adopted in similar form) the Environmental Protection Agency has released proposed Air Emission Standards Impacting the Management of Sewage Sludge Nationwide. They will have a major impact on the limited options local governments have for the management of sewage sludge.

Rather than encouraging upgrades to newer, cleaner incinerators paired with energy recovery that can offset a significant amount of the energy needs for treating wastewater, the proposed standards will result in many of the US’s wastewater utilities abandoning their significant capital investments and simply sending an energy-rich secondary material for disposal in a landfill.

At this time due to the limited space available for curing of biosolds at the Hartland landfill, the production of PenGrow is limited to about 180 tonnes per year, which represents only 5% of the 3,500 tonnes of residual solids produced annually by the Saanich Peninsular Treatment Plant.

Another issue I would like to draw to your attention to again, is carbon offsets. A University of Victoria Scientist has informed me that:

“There are very clear standards for claiming offsets. You can only claim an offset if a technology is introduced that is replacing an existing technology that is producing emissions. You also cannot claim an offset if you planned to do something anyway.”

Let us be more honest about the carbon footprint.  Offsets are being claimed but this is a sham as it does not reduce the original carbon footprint.  The annual emissions prior to claiming any offsets, based on one set of calculations from a previous report that you have received, will be the equivalent to the C02e put out by 7,736 automobiles per year.

By building these land based sewage treatment plants there will be an adverse effect on the land (terrestrial) and global environments.

Speaking briefly to Agenda #7. The report reinforces the fact that with the current two deep sea outfalls treating Victoria’s sewage naturally there is no measurable public health risk and a minimum effect on the Marine Environment.

• ·         predicted wastewater concentrations in the marine environment met receiving water quality guidelines for the protection of aquatic life,
• ·         the potential for sea surface human exposure to wastewaters from the outfalls is low (public health officials have said not measurable), and

• ·  there are some limited effects on marine organisms which are restricted to within 100m at Clover Point and within approximately 200m east of the Macaulay Point outfall diffuser. Overall monitoring results…………indicate that the effects of the outfalls are not expanding or increasing over time.

Thank you,

Dr Shaun Peck, Public Health Consultant

Member of Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria  www.rstv.ca

Board member of the Association for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment. www.aresst.ca

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At the outset I would like to express my sincere appreciation to each of the speakers that contributed to making the September 15 APEGBC meeting the success it was, in particular Mr. Jack Hull, P.Eng – Project manager for the proposed wastewater treatment facility. His agreeing to present knowing full well the positions of each of the other three speakers is truly admirable. None the less, the arguments put forward by each of: Dr. Jack Littlepage, PhD – Biological Oceanographer; Dr. Shaun Peck, MD – former Deputy Provincial Health Officer; and Dr. Keith Martin, MD – Member of Parliament for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, lead one to question why the various levels of government feel it is necessary to throw taxpayers money away on a method of wastewater treatment that will have negligible net benefit to the Environment and a HUGE negative net benefit to the pocketbook of every resident of the Capital Regional District.

Each of the presentations put forward were very informative. Mr. Hull provided a polished presentation on the merits of the proposed wastewater treatment facility, which is scheduled to be built at McLaughlin Point for an estimated capital cost of $782,000,000.00 plus or minus 25%… if one were to assume the higher of the estimates, the likely capital cost would be closer to $977,500,000.00. Then there is the annual operating cost of $14,500,000.00 plus or minus 25%. Following the previous logic the likely cost would be $18,125,000.00 each and every year the facility is in operation. Therefore based on a 25 year design-life, the total cost of the facility could be as high as $1,430,625,000.00… or $1.43 Billion. $1.43 Billion is a very dear price to pay, but it’s to protect the environment… so it’s OK, right?

Not so! After listening to presentations from Dr. Jack Littlepage, PhD and Dr. Shaun Peck, MD one realizes that effects of the discharge from the deep-water diffusers are restricted to within 100m at Clover Point and within approximately 200m east of the Macaulay Point outfall diffuser. In fact, to quote the November 2008 Sewage Outfall Monitoring Test Results: The concept of natural sewage treatment has been criticized in the media, but in fact waste treatment is well recognized as a useful ecosystem service contributing to human well-being (Costanza et al., 1997; Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007). The focus of environmental protection is changing to preserving such ecosystem services to the benefit of both human beings and the natural environment (e.g., USEPA, 2008).

It makes no sense to replace a natural ecosystem service with a human creation that is energy inefficient and has other harmful environmental consequences.

All of which leads one to question why this is being endorsed. It is one thing to be blissfully ignorant of the science behind the issue, but to throw away the taxpayers money, our money, on an installation that, according to the scientists and medical professionals, will do absolutely nothing to correct the real dangers to our waters, (Arsenic, Chromium, Lead, Zinc, Mercury, PCBs and PBDEs) is irresponsible! Keep in mind the cost to build and maintain this less than effective solution could be $1.43 Billion… that’s more than the cost of 18 new Johnson Street Bridges, or 59 McTavish Rd/Hwy 17 Overpasses, to build a facility that could end up having a greater negative impact on the Environment as a whole than if we left the situation the way it is!

Toward the end of Dr. Jack Littlepage’s presentation he listed the following items as requisites for the protection of the marine environment:
Inclusion of the present system (plus enhancements) in the “triple bottom line” (environmental, social, economic) comparison of options

• Greater public understanding of the Victoria Marine Discharge System
• Action on more pressing marine environmental* and public health issues
• Action on storm sewer discharges and their connections to sanitary sewers
• HONEST AND OPEN DISCUSSION!

*Habitat protection, prevention of introduction of non-native species, regulation of fishing practices, elimination of some persistent pollutants

He concludes his presentation with this rather telling statement: “Land-based treatment of Victoria’s sewage is a low priority for marine environmental protection,” and to back up his statement he cites the Marine Pollution Bulletin, October 2008. If an expert in the field of Oceanography feels that the proposed wastewater treatment facility is a “low priority” and if the former Regional Medical Health Officer feels “there is no measurable public health risk from Victoria’s current method of offshore liquid waste disposal…”, then why is this facility being built?

It is not too late for us to have our opinions heard. This Wastewater Treatment Facility is not a “done-deal”, but the window of opportunity to have our opinions heard is fast closing. It is critically important to let those in power know how we, the taxpayers, feel about this decision. If you are interested in saving yourself somewhere in the neighbourhood of $400.00 to $500.00 of taxes per annum for as long as you choose to live in Greater Victoria, then please visit the websites ARESST (The Association for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment in Victoria) www.aresst.ca and RSTV (Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria) www.rstv.ca

Please make your voice heard.

Rob McDermot, PEng

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University of Victoria oceanography professor Jack Littlepage, who wrote one chapter of my book Victoria’s Sewage Circus, points out that “we should be promoting our system as one of the most efficient and environmentally sound systems in North America.”

Nobody knows more about it.

To change to land-based secondary sewage treatment plants would be environmentally backwards. The proposal to do so is based on lack of knowledge.

Such a proposal does not yet take account of the environmental and health damage that the building and operating of land-based plants would cause.

The politicians will die but the environmental and financial damage will go on generation after generation for the change is irreversible. Environment Minister Barry Penner is out of his depth. Must we and our environment all suffer?

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John Motherwell, PEng.

John Motherwell, Bob Furber and Alex Murdoch, Special to Times Colonist, September 23, 2010

Capital Regional District board chairman Geoff Young defended the choice of McLoughlin Point as the site of a sewage treatment plant,  citing “significant resource recovery, lower cost and reduced impacts on neighbourhoods” plus “social, economic and environmental sustainability.”

We disagree, and support Esquimalt council in its call for a second look.

McLoughlin Point is a magnificent setting and, as View Royal Mayor Graham Hill has remarked, if this were Sydney, it would support an opera house. Treating it simply as available industrial land would be a gross misuse of a unique public treasure and this alone has upset many people.

But even if that were not an issue there is a great deal wrong with the McLoughlin Plan. And many of the “advantages” cited by the CRD board are wishful thinking at best.

Modern, efficient treatment plants generate energy through heat recovery and methane production, often enough to supply 80 per cent of their needs. But McLoughlin Point will not house a treatment plant, but rather half of a plant, the other half to be up to 18 kilometres away and connected by two large pipes — a system dictated by the fact that the site is too small!

Designers strive to integrate plants as closely as possible and we know of no other case where components have been so widely separated.

This is an extremely inefficient system demanding huge amounts of energy, and any “recovery” will be a fraction of that expended; to suggest that there will be a surplus is to ignore the laws of physics.

Methane generated at Hartland could be sold, but that energy would have to be replaced at McLoughlin through the purchase of electricity — essentially a shell game. The suggestion that phosphorus (fertilizer) and/or dried biosolids (fuel pellets) could be sold ignores the fact that production costs (in dollars, energy, and greenhouse gases) would be many times the value of the finished products. Digging up roads and existing utilities for pipelines and pumping stations would be costly and very disruptive.

Young says a tunnel under Esquimalt Harbour to supply a West Shore plant would be “an extremely high-risk and high-cost endeavour.” We agree, but note that the McLoughlin option requires not one but three large pipes beneath Victoria harbour — one delivering sewage (mostly water) from the Victoria side, one with a thicker “slurry” to the solids plant, and one returning still-contaminated water from the solids plant for reprocessing at McLoughlin.

He states categorically that “there will be no problematic odours” and that “planned redundancies … will prevent any discharge of raw sewage into the harbour” — essentially “Trust us, nothing can go wrong.”

But all such plants (even the CRD plant at Bazan Bay) produce odours and, although these are commonly mitigated, malfunctions can be very unpleasant indeed. As for the impossibility of spills, Halifax is still cleaning up the mess discharged into its harbour by a malfunction two years past.

And those pipes below the harbour in a high-risk seismic zone?

Murphy’s law applies: Things will go wrong.

- John Motherwell is a practising civil engineer who designs sewage treatment systems; Bob Furber is a retired chemical engineer with experience in both sewage treatment and resource recovery; Alex Murdoch is a director of the Society for Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Sewage Treatment [aresst.ca].

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Many people are upset with the harmonized sales tax and the impact this tax will have on their lives. For some it may be substantial, but for most it is really just a few extra dollars a year.

Because it is a consumption tax you can choose to buy an item or not. As for the tax dollars collected, they go toward paying for all the services our government provides, such as health care and education. These are direct benefits for all British Columbians.

Compare that to a billion-dollar sewage plant in Esquimalt that no one wants, scientific evidence says we don’t need, will not significantly improve the quality of the discharge liquids, will do nothing to stop contaminants from entering the system at the source, will not fix our antiquated infrastructure, will cost every household in greater Victoria up to $500 per year in additional property taxes and will not directly benefit us in any way.

Where is the petition to stop this gross misdirection of public policy and waste of my hard-earned tax dollars? Why do we sign a petition against a tax that doesn’t change 80 per cent of the items we purchase yet there is no revolt against $500 added to your property tax for something that will not benefit you?

John Vukovic
Victoria

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Esquimalt Review.com, Tim Morrison, July 27, 2010 at 6:03 pm

It was a hot summer evening last week at Esquimalt Municipal Hall….hot in temperatures and hot in tempers.

Of note, there was absolutely no CRD representation in attendance to hear the concerns of the community during this traditional Town Hall-style Meeting….not even one CRD official had the decency or, more likely, the courage to face the people most impacted by a the CRD’s irresponsible planning. One speaker after another lined up to point out the many foibles of the project, often referred to as “billion dollar boondoggle”.

Outrage at Esquimalt Chambers towards CRD

The crowd included experts, engineers, and environmentalists, all of whom pointed out that the project is not only too costly at $300 per year per household, but that it also hurts more than helps the environment.

The people of Esquimalt stressed that this is not about NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard syndrome), but rather more about common sense and doing what is in the best interests of the environment and the taxpayers. All of the public input pleaded with Council to do “whatever it takes” to halt the project from becoming reality, a message heard loud and clear by Council.

“This is not just an Esquimalt problem,” declared Mayor Barb Desjardins. “This is a regional disaster that is occurring. This is not the right plan.”

Councillor Don Linge, a lawyer by profession, described the situation as “a classic class-action case in which we are all impacted” in referring to the need for all CRD residents to join forces in stopping the project through whatever legal means available.

Councillor Randall Garrison vowed that he was willing to play nice with the CRD and approach the matter rationally to negotiate a solution in the best interests of Esquimalt, but if the CRD continue to ignore our community, then he is prepared to have Council obstruct the project through whatever means possible including bylaws that would ban trucking in/out of the site.

As the evening wore on and as both the public and Council expressed themselves so passionately, it became abundantly clear that the CRD have picked a fight with the wrong community and one that will not standby and allow this project to be bulldozed into our home.

“We are Esquimalt, we are proud, and we have a voice,” declared Councillor Meagan Brame.

Esquimalt’s next move will likely involve legal action against the CRD in a case of taxpayer suing taxpayer…a mess all of the CRD’s making and a mess much more revolting that anything in our sewage system.

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