Opinions on wastewater treatment plant in Victoria
Many of you dear readers may (or may not) know that one of my research areas is the governance of wastewater. You may also have heard about the plans for a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). The city of Victoria currently dumps its wastewater untreated into the ocean, although plans are being made to build a wastewater treatment plant. Some people agree and would like this to happen, some people disagree.
Although I’ve seen reports by some scientists that this effluent has no negative impact whatsoever (a concept very much in line with the old US Environmental Protection Agency saying “the solution to pollution is dilution“), I am somewhat skeptical and thus would like to explore this issue more. One of my former undergraduate students wrote her term paper about this topic but that was a year and a half ago, so I’m looking to actually do this research on my own.
If you live in Victoria (or in Vancouver Island) and know of some people who’d be interested in sharing their opinions, please feel free to forward this post and/or give them my email address (hummingbird604 AT gmail.com).
[One of the things I love about Twitter and blogging is that I can reach far more people using Web 2.0 tools than I could by just using plain old cold calling or emails]
Related posts:
- Cabin 12 (Victoria, British Columbia)
- Get-away to Victoria (even if only for one day)
- My year in review – Water governance and policy research
- The International Year of Sanitation was 2008 – how much progress have we made?
- The governance of wastewater and the culture of flushing
Hi Raul,
Our current marine-based sewage treatment in Victoria, consisting of two long screened outfalls and source controls is indeed, very adequate, considering the type of sewage and the unique receiving environment. Where marine-based treatment is not adequate, such as in the nearby towns of Sidney and Sooke, we would agree that land-based sewage treatment is appropriate.
Many Victorians who share the opinion that additional land-based sewage treatment in our region will not increase the “cleanliness” of our nearby Juan de Fuca Strait, base their perspective on the evidence from the regional government (CRD) researchers, who consistently note that our marine effluent meets their standards. Additionally, the solid-waste leachate that is emitted through our long, screened outfalls also meets standards.
There is hardly one single perspective against this additional land-based sewage treatment – some are most opposed to the environmental impacts of additional land-based sewage treatment (MUCH more sewage sludge and greenhouse gases produced), while others are incensed at the extreme cost of this unnecessary land-based sewage treatment – a billion dollars to build and millions annually to operate. Others take the view that with the same amount of funding, so much more important environmental programs could be done, such as cleaning up storm drains. There are MANY problematic storm drain outlets in Victoria, and their contamination is dumped right near the beaches and shore environment. Additional sewage treatment will do NOTHING for that issue!
For more information on the unnecessary sewage treatment plant:
aresst.ca
rstv.ca
victoriasewagetreatment.ca/ccost/
sites.google.com/site/sewageplantsvictoria/