"The regulations include effluent quality standards that can be achieved through secondary wastewater treatment, or equivalent, and risk-based timelines to achieve the standards. . . . Wastewater systems that pose a high-risk will need to be addressed by the end of 2020."
Environment Canada, 18 July, 2012
Regional monitoring programs have not detected any deleterious impact on effluent-receiving waters from the existing primary Lions Gate Sewage Treatment Plant.
So why has the facility been placed in the high-risk category and required to provide secondary treatment by 2020?
That question demands an immediate, non-political answer because Metro -- or more specifically, the Greater Vancouver Sewerage and Drainage District -- is on the fast track to deciding which of three "scenarios" it will adopt as a replacement for the current primary treatment facility.
Scenarios A, B and C were distilled out of the original nine glossily-illustrated "concepts" that Metro released some months ago.
Scenario details can be found by following the Lions Gate thread from www.metrovancouver.org/services/wastewater/treatment/
As is often the case with capital projects, the government-level work is being shared by a dedicated, well-qualified North Shore public advisory committee -- the LGSTP PAC.
One member of the committee, Dr. Troy Vassos, has influenced my own opinions about wastewater treatment technology since I first met him in 1995. A long-time North Vancouver resident, Vassos was a principal of NovaTec Consultants until January when he joined Golder Associates as senior environmental engineer.
A top man in his field, Vassos has specialized in the design of advanced water and wastewater treatment systems at the municipal and industrial level for more than 32 years. The North Shore couldn't ask for a better resource when it comes to treatment technology, water re-use and conservation methods.
My bias declared I can now expand on my original question: Why are taxpayers being asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new secondary-treatment facility at Pemberton and First Street?
The answer is important because Environment Canada states in its March 2010 Proposed Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations, "Treated wastewater may [still] contain grit, debris, biological wastes, disease-causing bacteria, nutrients and hundreds of chemicals such as those in drugs and in personal care products like shampoo and cosmetics."
Isn't that the material we'd rather not send into our offshore waters?
Stressing that he was speaking from personal experience and not on behalf of the LGSTP PAC, Vassos confirmed the federal statement when he told me that wastewater treatment technologies "are designed solely to convert food into bacteria at an extremely high capital and operating cost."
Even more worrisome, when asked why governments don't target the toxic compounds in the effluent, Vassos said "it's because end-of-pipe technology doesn't exist to remove the contaminants of real concern."
Disturbed by that observation, I decided to look at the situation in Greater Victoria and at the experience of that city's residents, scientists and public health officials who, since at least 2006, have been asking similar questions.
One Oak Bay resident is David Anderson, a former provincial MLA who also represented Victoria in the House of Commons where he served as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and as Environment Minister in the Chrétien governments of 1997 and 2004.
Anderson's fisheries appointments are particularly relevant to this story because DFO representatives on the GVSDD monitoring committee found no harmful effects in the effluent being discharged from the current Lions Gate primary treatment plant.
Emphasizing that every wastewater treatment facility must be site-specific, Anderson referred me to rstv.ca and to a Feb. 24, 2008 letter published in the Victoria Times Colonist over the signatures of six regional and provincial health officers.
Discussing their reasons for opposing what was projected to be a $1.2 billion-plus land-based treatment plant, they asked what other initiatives could be funded with those dollars. "What about housing for the homeless, support for vulnerable children and families, public care facilities . . . light rapid transit?"
Excellent points -- but their final remarks jumped right off the page.
All six agreed it made sense "to improve (Victoria's) liquid waste disposal system" and to "place additional emphasis on source control . . . to prevent unwanted toxins from getting into sewers" -- the emphasis is my own.
They closed with this zinger we'd do well to echo as we consider our North Shore dilemma: "It does not make sense to plan a massive public expenditure for which no measurable benefit has been identified."
Amen!
But this week's episode cannot close without reference to a different concern raised on Nov. 16, 2012 by District of North Vancouver Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn.
In a council conversation observed by North Shore News reporter Jeremy Shepherd, MacKay-Dunn said "The whole site could be underwater in 30 years."
That sounded a little over-the-top even for me, so I asked Vassos what he thought and, lo and behold -- "It's a significant concern due to expected rising sea levels and the low elevation of the site," he said.
"Metro is well aware of the issue and it's a key design consideration."
Sometimes I just can't be serious -- has Metro appointed King Canute to the PAC?
Last November, Metro assured the North Shore News editorial department it would never build something "that's going to wash away."
Last Tuesday, when asked whether the site investigation report was available to the public, Metro's project manager Fred Nenninger told me that a "technical team is undertaking this work" according to the latest provincial guidelines and the National Building Code.
The Project Definition Report is scheduled for release this fall.
Assurances notwithstanding, when you hear that the availability of the yet-to-be-committed federal funds are contingent upon the project being structured to "leverage private sector investment. . . ." you cannot but wonder whether the federal-provincial legislation is aimed at improving the quality of our effluents, or whether it's being used as an excuse to put billions of taxpayers' dollars into the hands of their corporate supporters.
