Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins didn’t hear many new ideas at Tuesday’s West Shore Chamber of Commerce-sponsored breakfast meeting presenting an overview of regional sewage treatment options.
What she heard clearly from some of the 15 to 20 people gathered at Colwood Golf Club, however, was that business owners are angry about the proposed costs being offered for public consumption by the Capital Regional District.
“What I am hearing is a very strong voice from the business community that is clearly concerned with the cost of what is coming forward,” she said.
“They’re not just looking at the average household cost, they’re looking at anywhere upward of two times and beyond those costs.”
For the seven treatment options being discussed, the CRD website’s wastewater planning pages indicate projected average per household costs for each of the municipalities involved in the project, but give no information about the potential cost to commercial property owners.
During a question period after the presentation, Chamber president Doug Kobayashi said he was “outraged” with the way the costs have increased for the project. He said residents were initially told they’d be looking at around a $250 annual charge and that has risen dramatically under the new options.
He asked why the private sector hasn’t been brought in more to consult on the project.
Presenter Chris Town, with Victoria consulting firm Urban Systems, pointed out that had the CRD allowed a site near either Macaulay or Clover points, where the region’s two outfall pipes lay, the overall project cost would have remained at the original cost, which was $792 million.
Desjardins said later in an interview that the CRD and the sewage committees need to engage the private sector much more than they have to this point, adding that conversations with private business people have taken place on more of a “stepped-back” basis.
Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton, who like her Westside Solutions co-chair Desjardins has attended many meetings and forums about the project, was glad to have the options presented to the local business community.
“One of the reasons in bringing the Chamber folks involved in it … was to get the message across that they have a stake to play in this and that they really need to come to the table as well with what they’re thinking,” she said. “At the end of the day we have to have a project or an outcome that is manageable across the board, and that includes residents as well as businesses.”
One attendee’s question that got Hamilton’s attention, a new idea she hadn’t heard before, was whether rebates would be offered to people living in modern developments that treat their own sewage. No accommodation has been made for such situations, but the meeting moderator told the man she’d like to hear more about the idea.
Town found himself explaining everything from the difference between secondary and tertiary treatment to the various configurations that would involve the West Shore.
One includes a two-plant option with an extra large facility at Rock Bay – a site included in all of the options – and a much smaller plant in Colwood. Asked why there was no two-plant, east-west option with a large facility on both sides – one at Rock Bay and another, say on Esquimalt First Nation land, Town had no answer.
Such an scenario could potentially be realized, he surmised, by using the current four-plant option and removing the smaller Colwood and East Saanich plants.
“There’s an infinite number of solutions,” he said later in an interview. “Practically speaking, we tried to provide a range … given the sites that were available for use, given the CRD project charter and goals and objectives they set out, and given the public input from the spring of 2015, starting with the lowest cost and the highest resource recovery. I think we’ve covered the gamut as far as bookending what the infinite number of solutions could be.”
The core area liquid waste management committee meets Feb. 24, four days after the public consultation period on the seven options is scheduled to end. With a March 31 deadline looming for part of the federal funding toward the project, there is potential for a major decision to be made at that meeting, Desjardins said.
“Everyone is looking for that concept plan from us,” she said, noting that other solutions over and above the seven listed options continue to come forward. “We don’t have really any more time. We’re already getting pushback from deadlines, from what we can see. But we also have to be smart in what we do … It’ll be a very interesting meeting on the 24th.”
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