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Big Sewer Blockages
Victoria must now treat its sewage, but how?
Victoria's Mr. Floatie and friends, from POOP.
On a sunny, windy afternoon, bull kelp bobs in the glinting waves off Macaulay Point, just west of Victoria's inner harbour. A woman in a red tank top labours up the path into the park. A family walking their dogs heads towards the military housing around the corner. A chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire, protects a low, nondescript Capital Regional District building. If it weren't for the narrow "outfall" sign nearby, you'd never know a torrent of untreated sewage passes below and out to sea.
Nor would you know that this waterfront park is about to be at the centre of a complex debate. Late last month, B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner ordered the CRD to set a fixed schedule for introducing sewage treatment, and to have a plan in place by June 30, 2007. The move raises a huge range of questions, not the least of which is where to start building.
"Macaulay Point is the default location," says Jane Sterk, an Esquimalt councillor and former provincial Green party candidate. Sterk welcomes treatment but argues prime property next to the ocean isn't appropriate for a plant. The other obvious location is Clover Point, the site of Victoria's other existing outfall, across the road from million-dollar Fairfield homes on Dallas Road. If the people in middle-class Esquimalt raise a stink, it will smell relatively pleasant compared with the hue and cry likely to come from Fairfield.
The CRD's current plan, approved by the province in 2003, is for treatment plants at Macaulay and Clover points, says Dwayne Kalynchuk, the CRD's general manager of environmental services. At both sites, he says, plants would be buried. It would cost $250 million to make them both primary treatment, and $450 million to upgrade them to provide secondary treatment. A third site would be needed somewhere else to treat the sludge that would be trucked away from them.
Primary treatment, as defined in the July 12 Scientific and Technical Review: Capital Regional District Core Area Liquid Waste Management Plan, involves passing screened sewage through large tanks and allowing its various components to separate. Heavy material sinks to the bottom where it becomes sludge, while oils and other light elements rise to the surface where they can be skimmed off. That would reduce the amount of solids in Victoria wastewater by about 60 per cent.
Sewage pressure builds
Secondary treatment breaks down the sludge further. There are various ways to do it using micro-organisms. It's possible, says the report, to break the contaminants down to the point where they are virtually eliminated.
Already, pressure is building on the CRD to get beyond primary treatment. Tourism Victoria says secondary treatment is the minimum. The federal government, which is updating its wastewater guidelines, is widely expected to soon require at least secondary treatment.
The issue is also surfacing again in Vancouver. On August 2, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and two other groups launched a private legal action against the Greater Vancouver Regional District, alleging federal Fisheries Act violations by two facilities that provide only primary treatment. The objective is to force the GVRD to upgrade the plants.
Saanich councillor and former CRD chair Judy Brownoff says primary treatment in Victoria won't be enough. "Primary won't reduce those higher levels of contaminants from the sea floor," she says of copper, lead, zinc and other potential toxins. "I don't want to continue to create a contaminated site, because the cost of remediation could be very expensive for future generations."
Brownoff says she doesn't know yet what kind of treatment she'll support, but every possibility should be considered. "The options are bigger than just two big honking plants, which I don't think will work and I wouldn't support," she says. " I think you reach, and you use resource recovery to show the world how you can reduce greenhouse gases, recapture water and make energy."
But to do that, it becomes necessary to look beyond the CRD, its staff and the various municipal councils. The politicians are swimming hard to pop up on the right side of the tide now, but they are largely still coming to terms with having to move forward at all. Among the politicians, says Brownoff, "Quite honestly, nobody has been pushing a vision."
From stain to halo
Stephen Salter doesn't consider himself an expert on sewage, he says, but he is a mechanical engineer who has been working for several years with the Victoria Sewage Alliance, a coalition of environmental and labour groups, including the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation and the Victoria Labour Council.
Mr. Floatie, the scatological mascot of People Opposed to Outfall Pollution, may get credit for turning public opinion about sewage treatment, but Salter has been quietly effective in his own right. He says he spent a month analyzing CRD data to show the environment ministry that our sewage outfalls are creating contaminated sites. The ministry later confirmed his charge with its own study.
Now he wants to make sure we move forward in a way that gets beyond just cleaning up our effluent. Important as that is, he says, there are all kinds of opportunities to embrace here. "It's going to be a lot of money. Let's get the most environmental, social and economic benefit we can from this."
Even within the realm of "secondary" treatment, there are countless options. Does Victoria want to recover water, which will be in increasingly short supply? Membrane systems, like those used in San Diego, filter water that could be used for industrial purposes or to irrigate golf courses and parks, says Salter. "One day we'll be drinking it, because we'll be desperate," he adds.
The cost of such a membrane system would have to be balanced against the cost of finding more water sources in the future.
It's cheap and easy to recover cooking oil and grease, says Salter, and turn it into bio-diesel, which could be sold to help defray the expense. There's enough oil going out with our sewage to run 200 buses. Or you could use it in whale watching boats, something that would send a message to visitors and locals that we're doing things differently. "Suddenly our stain becomes our halo."
Another consideration is minimizing energy use. Traditional methods suck power to pump sewage from one place to another, then use even more to infuse oxygen into the mix. Would an anaerobic system, which doesn't require oxygen, use less energy? What about one that uses algae to break down the waste? Each of these is being used somewhere in the world, and could potentially be applied here.
And how much energy can the treatment process generate? If we use an anerobic method, the methane byproduct could be used to generate electricity. Vancouver does this at its Annacis Island wastewater treatment plant, and it's also done in Lethbridge. Salter says plants such as one in San Diego actually produce more energy than they use.
Lethbridge also uses cogeneration -- capturing the heat from a generator run on methane. Some facilities in Washington State and Japan use fuel cells that consume methane while generating both electricity and heat.
Warmth can also be removed from the sewage to heat buildings -- in Victoria's case, perhaps several thousand homes.
The processed sludge, says Salter, can be heated in a closed system with a process called pyrolysis, which breaks the molecules into smaller pieces and can be used to create either a gas or liquid fuel. When it's done, you are left with a glassy ash, he says, that can be refined in much the same way that ore is refined from a mine.
It's possible to remove minerals from the sludge. In Sweden, for example, the government requires sewage plants to remove at least 60 per cent of the phosphates, useful as fertilizer from their waste. "If you recover phosphorus you don't have to make phosphorus," says Salter. "It avoids upstream pollution."
In total, according to a table Salter prepared, about $1.3 million worth of metals go out with our sewage each year, including significant amounts of aluminum, magnesium, potassium, silver and zinc.
In the future, there will be even more possibilities for treating our sewage. How about a microbial fuel cell, like the one being developed at Pennsylvania State University, in which little critters give off electrons while they consume sewage? In one step, says Salter, they break down sewage and produce useable electricity. Whatever we plan, he says, we should leave room to improve on our system. "We'll be replacing it as it wears out. There's always going to be better to come."
Sewage plants for everyone!
Another question is whether to build one or two large plants, or a distributed system where smaller plants are spread around the region. The CRD review panel argued large plants offer economies of scale. Salter says we shouldn't overlook the possibility of creating small systems like the one going into the Dockside Green development.
When the Dockside Green development is completed next to the upper harbour, it will treat the sewage of some 2,500 residents on site. "There's this whole stigma of living next to a sewage plant," says Salter. "But people are signing up to live on top of one at Dockside."
The Dockside plan minimizes the water that residents use, reducing the amount that needs to be treated. "The [treated] water will be, after chlorination, virtually potable," says development manager Carola Bloedorn. "Though most people get queasy thinking about that."
The developer says the treated water will be used to flush toilets, for irrigation, to top up ponds, and possibly sold. Heat recovered from the treatment process will be used to warm the buildings. Using this system, says Bloedorn, 2,500 residents will create only a couple of garbage bags of sludge a week.
And residents will actually save more than what it costs to treat their sewage: They'll be making money on their waste.
"It is being done on a neighbourhood basis in India and China," says Salter, who believes there's no reason the model can't be expanded here.
The ideas Salter is talking about don't fit well into a debate over whether we should have primary, secondary or tertiary treatment. "It's actually kind of a lateral thinking approach altogether," he says.
Some options could be relatively cheap and easy; others will clearly be expensive. But those costs need to be considered against upstream benefits and unforeseen downstream harm. It's necessary, Salter says, to look at it holistically.
Turning knowledge into action
"Everyone's afraid of the cost and the stink," he says. "Let's get over the fear. Let's get inspired," Salter says. "We actually know how to solve the problem. We have had a leadership gap, and hopefully that's changing."
Salter and the sewage alliance are recommending the CRD employ a design competition that's open to all submissions. The suggestion is being echoed by Judy Brownoff. "I think we need to challenge the greater world. There's tons of stuff happening everywhere but here," Brownoff says. "I love the idea of using Mr. Floatie to power buses."
At the July 26 CRD liquid waste committee meeting, a motion to open such a competition was put forward, but it got tabled until after the committee members are briefed in August. The members also rejected a proposal from the regional staff to go back to Stantec Consulting Ltd. to update the plan they'd previously drawn up for sewage treatment, as well as to engage a public-private partnership consultant for advice.
Saanich mayor Frank Leonard was among those who want that briefing first. He also wants to digest the two reports, and get clarification on the province's intentions.
While some have characterized the move as stalling, Leonard says it's only wise to go slowly and make credible decisions. "Sometimes we have to figure things out in front of the public and reporters," he says. "If you make a decision that appears to be biased right at the start, you can never put Humpty Dumpty together again."
In the end, he says, an open, public process will result in a better decision with more support throughout the region. "If you do it right, it's actually faster. If you don't have credibility and you make decisions without people knowing something's being discussed, these things take longer."
No doubt it's worth getting right. Victoria has already created two contaminated sites, and Macaulay and Clover points are two beautiful waterfront parks that nobody wants to sacrifice. It's time to find a way to do the right thing.
Andrew MacLeod is a staff reporter for Victoria's Monday Magazine, where a version of this piece originally appeared. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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21
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fish
5 years ago
Comments on "Big Sewer Blockages"
I spent part of my childhood living in Fairfield and we played on the beach at Ross Bay and along Clover Point. We were always warned not to go into the water and on certain days, one could smell why. We regularly found used condoms in among the flotsam at the tideline -- we thought they were balloons and couldn't understand why our mother was horrified when we brought some home... That was nearly 50 years and it's always amazed and depressed me that Victoria's beaches are still much the same. Let's hope that a new generation might actually be allowed to swim on those beaches.
DPL
5 years ago
In the eary 70's one guy on city council kept saying "Vote for me, I'm a engineer and you can rest assured the outfall at Clover Point will never be a problem. To build a real system not a bunch of screens to stop the real big stuff, would have been a lot cheaper then.It's great that Penner has oprdered the locals to do something by next year. He could really get the ball rolling by committing provincial funding and get a similar new committment from the feds. Speak dollars politicians, such as we will comit these number of millions, after all its out of our pockets no matter what the source.
I still think Mr. Floaty should have been allowed to run for the mayor job, but by even trying to, as well as the guy who ran against the mayor saying the same things, it got the present mayor to actually declare an interest. A lot of politicians don't lead, they are dragged, when the issue is about to affect them politically. Come on Victoria join the real world.
G West
5 years ago
yep fish, and until they extended the Clover Point outfall to its current extent (finished 1980) the coliform count on windows exposed to the sea spray from a SE gale in the Ross Bay area was pretty high too.
climber
5 years ago
What did David Anderson do about it, remember him? One of the biggest hipocrits this province has ever known. Stopped oil exploration off the coast, got rid of lighthouses, all the while, whats the saying "don't shit in your own backyard" Makes me howl, too funny.
RickW
5 years ago
But everyone else's is just fine.............
I think it's time we also decided just what should be flushed and what shouldn't as well. Not sure how that would be enforced. Perhaps the purveyors of drugs and heavy metals ought to share in the responsibility of disposal...........
maestro
5 years ago
To CLIMBER:
Good one "climber" re David Anderson.....touche' !!!
He was what you get when you put the Federal Liberals in a blender and clone the resulting DNA..." Know -it All Preaching meets Political Survival meets Hypocrisy " gene .
We have potentially an increasingly valuable resource that can't be tapped because people like Anderson lit his limited hair on fire.....we buy it from elsewhere...and thus deprive ourselves of a HUGE opportunity to benefit EVERYONE from A to Z in the socio - political spectrum with the revenue,jobs etc.
HOWEVER ....Anderson "somehow" ignored the UNtreated sewage Victoria pumps out into the very same ocean he claims he protects...probably because the HUGE cost would be politically volatile..aka cost him votes...so then he can't preach to us...damn!!!
Probably be scary to see what actually does go straight into the ocean....the old motto " SOLUTION TO POLLUTION IS DILUTION ", hopefully ???
Anderson probably politically "ignored" them floating turds to the same degree that Liberal colleague Hedy Fry "saw" burning crosses 1000 miles away.
PS Welcome to the real world Victoria...but my advice via experience is to avoid a Victoria version of the GVRD "tax and levy everything" Mafia...We have been paying sewer levy taxes for decades...to pay for our sewer and sewer treatment infrastructure....and still don't have them...and we are only one mile from City(shitty?) Hall.
Make sure you actually get what you are taxed and levied for...learn from our GVRD mistakes...
Hopefully you also will get tried and true proven treatment technology....and not get some snake oil "cutting edge" technology your star -struck politicos may lap up that may ultimately fail and cost you even more.
EXAMPLE: Through an FOI request , a local reporter found out that our City's fancy local pool complex originally had "sexy" ozonation treatment...it failed shortly after...sat unrepaired for years..no one knew about it...they had subtley switched to chlorine...thousands of $$$ wasted .
Kam Lee
5 years ago
Anderson, Gordo Campbell, and all the rest of those freeloaders. Its never to late for the project. Take some of that wasted olympic money, and spend it on the plant. Save Victoria, A: built a plant, B: get rid of gordo. flush both problems. Simple.
climber
5 years ago
Maestro, you remember that cull as well, and Hedy Fry, not good BCers, or westerners, they should have moved to Ottawa where people like that belong. That the guy had the nerve to prattle on about the enviroment is beyond me, what a disgrace, its high time to at least do some exploration work on oil off the B.C. coast. Like you say, the potential benefits are huge, the risks are lower than ever with the advances in technology that have come along since the moratorium. How about the oil paying to clean the shit? No that would make to much sense, bring on the conslutants for more studies, let another thirty years go by.
sdgreen
5 years ago
The Capital Regional District has had how long to deal with this question?
My god the CRD is completely and totally incompetent. They should have had plans ready to go. Instead the CRD just does studies and studies, wastes money on useless projects while at the same time building their own new building.
Just like the water issue, they took years upon years to figure out what to do. Regional Districts really need a very critical review to determine whether they should exist at all.
The Captial Regional District government completely out of control.
Fish-counter
5 years ago
High time that Victoria cleaned up its act. If they have any pride left at all, they will install a state-of-the-art plant, with primary, secondary and tertiary treatment. Then they can brag about being the capital of Super-Natural BC. Something tells me this won't happen without a rocket being set under their backsides.
There are lots of examples to follow, including Calgary and Mount Washington. The latest "study" was a waste of money, and the "report" was a perfect example of a committee of gutless wonders trying to sit on the fence and being offensive while doing it. Never trust an engineer to do an environmental evaluation; they are not trained for it.
Much as I dislike the Liberals, they have my vote next time around, for this decision alone. The NDP had many years to do something about the disgraceful stain on the CRD's pollution record, but they were too busy designing the perfect ferry boat.
The province has no obligation to help pay for this. It should have been done decades ago. Let the CRD use the interest on the money they should have spent 50 years ago. It is a reverse opportunity-cost.
The Sierra Legal Defence has started proceedings against North Vancouver. Perhaps they should start them agains the CRD, just to put the politicians on notice.
Shame on Victoria, the CRD and every sewage treatment engineer that ever worked for them. Just stop whining and get it done. If you know how to get anything at all, prove it. No more studies.
Bottlepicker
5 years ago
It's probably highly appropriate, especially of late, that the provincial legislature is located in Poo Town.
mjscox
5 years ago
Where to put the sewage treatment plant: the city has been sitting on this for so long its almost a crime. They should have started dealing with this back when the U.S. was complaining about the outfall. Put it in under the park, put it out by the heliport, put it where the sun don't shine, but get the thing built. These stupid Olympics were supposed to be "green", so to that end we're twinning a bridge to add more traffic and cutting a swath through a lovely and environmentally sensitive hillside (again for cars and future property development) and we're dicking about with raw sewage which will only add to the international embarrassment when the world's press descends on Vancouver prior to the Games. Nice.
IAMC
5 years ago
I don't think the outfall causes any environmental damage. In fact it's helpful. But I see this release of funds from both the Fed's and the Province, as an opportunity to do things privately and hire EPCOR or someone like that to handle this construction and manning of this useless plant.
I hope it's not a plot for Public Sector Unions to rape us again.
I can see it now. The local Labour Council and CUPE salivating at the thought of more tax payer funded jobs.
PPP, that will be the bad buzz word.
In a way, I might accept their wage demands, as they are so much lower than those payed to employees in the private sector.
I guess their ways aren't working to advance the wages of those they forced to deal with them.
Too bad.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Ah IAMC/Ron Erwin
Whenever I see one of your posts I know you'll serve up a delicious fat slow ball which can then be driven down your throat with ease. Of course the outfall doesn't cause the damage, the sewage does. I hope the province forces you residents of Victoria to pay every penny of the costs yourselves - you've been ignoring your responsibility as decent folks and responsible citizens for at least 50 years - to be charitable...and you've had the low mill rates that come with that all those years.
As Seneca (the younger) puts it:
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.
freebear
5 years ago
"Another question is whether to build one or two large plants, or a distributed system where smaller plants are spread around the region. The CRD review panel argued large plants offer economies of scale. Salter says we shouldn't overlook the possibility of creating small systems like the one going into the Dockside Green development.
When the Dockside Green development is completed next to the upper harbour, it will treat the sewage of some 2,500 residents on site. "There's this whole stigma of living next to a sewage plant," says Salter. "But people are signing up to live on top of one at Dockside."
The Dockside plan minimizes the water that residents use, reducing the amount that needs to be treated. "The [treated] water will be, after chlorination, virtually potable," says development manager Carola Bloedorn. "Though most people get queasy thinking about that."
The developer says the treated water will be used to flush toilets, for irrigation, to top up ponds, and possibly sold. Heat recovered from the treatment process will be used to warm the buildings. Using this system, says Bloedorn, 2,500 residents will create only a couple of garbage bags of sludge a week."
I think the above is the way to go.
freebear
5 years ago
"its high time to at least do some exploration work on oil off the B.C. coast. Like you say, the potential benefits are huge, the risks are lower than ever with the advances in technology that have come along since the moratorium."
Technology, tell that to BP in Alaska!
Risks to who and what?
Potential benefits for who and what?
'We' need to go to rehab and end our addiction to oil, and the subsequent wars to ensure 'our' fix!
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Amen freebear
Unfortunately, given the current occupant of 24 Sussex Drive, there seems at least an even chance that offshore exploitation may proceed, to the benefit of Mr. Harper's corporate enablers and the cost of a healthy coastal ecology in the worst case.
As you put it, addiction is a hard thing to kick. There is no easy way out of this mess and risking the environment to provide a few more rasping breaths for a dying patient is insane.
maestro
5 years ago
RE: Location of Sewage Treatment plants.
Good question:
Admittedly ,I am unfamiliar with Victoria's potential sites..
Their are 3 GVRD Sewage Treatment plants located in or near Richmond...ie Iona...Gilbert Road...and Annacis Island plants .
Iona and Gilbert Road plants are located in what are effectively rural areas...Annacis is built within what is effectively an Industrial (ie a non residential zoning)
On hot days and with winds..you do notice the "aroma"...
Gilbert Road plant is located within a 1/2 mile of denser residential areas.
They all look like sci-fi movie sets...the engineering takes precedent over architecture and aesthetics.
Just some advice...
Alcibiades
5 years ago
maestri
I think one can count on the municipal merry-go-round in Victoria to spin this one out for another few years at best before any construction actually starts. Until the province forces some kind of amalgamation of the multiple municipal mindlessness that stretches from the Highlands all the way round the Saanich Peninsula to Sidney there will be a lot more sound than light concerning this, and a lot of other issues. Although in fairness, there is a primary treatment plant in operation now not far from Island View Beach – opposite James Island - there are also First Nations lands to be taken into account as well. Nothing is simple.
freebear
5 years ago
I would agree with the samll is beautriful argument: "When the Dockside Green development is completed next to the upper harbour, it will treat the sewage of some 2,500 residents on site. "There's this whole stigma of living next to a sewage plant," says Salter. "But people are signing up to live on top of one at Dockside."
The Dockside plan minimizes the water that residents use, reducing the amount that needs to be treated. "The [treated] water will be, after chlorination, virtually potable," says development manager Carola Bloedorn. "Though most people get queasy thinking about that."
The developer says the treated water will be used to flush toilets, for irrigation, to top up ponds, and possibly sold. Heat recovered from the treatment process will be used to warm the buildings. Using this system, says Bloedorn, 2,500 residents will create only a couple of garbage bags of sludge a week.".
To me, one of the better ways (yes likely not enought to quell the coming crises) is to reduce the distance from the source (your flush toilet or composting toilet) to the solution (bilogical system aka: 'living machine') as noted above.
In a sense, moving from NIMBY to YIMBY (Yes in my backyard). Similar to the idea of having your sewage (treated) outflow above your water inflow. That would ensure treatment is always done right instead of using the dillution solution!
maestro
5 years ago
In the GVRD....there are 2 sewer rates...(i)a base rate everyone pays....whether you have sewer or not...and(ii) a user rate.
In the GVRD..with a huge population base( which I presume brings down the pro-rata cost)...one with an actual sewer hook-up pays about $200 extra.
Watch for cute games they(ie Gov't) play..especially your Local Gov't and their OCP's....they use sewers and hook ups "as priveleges", NOT rights.. and use as weapons against you...
They can allow for high density re-development all around you..which requires sewers....yet deny you ....so you stay stuck. We are one mile from our City Hall...on properties subdivided since 1909 ....yet no sewers...
If you live in an outlying area...careful that they don't pull another fast one by amalgamating you into their jurisdiction for a major tax grab...and not promise you certain services in return.
Cariboo Regional District did that to an area 100+ miles from Williams Lake (aka "our new CITY HALL" ) years ago....everything was fine before then....but their property tax mill rate sucks taxes at a rate 2 -3 X's Urban rates...and they provide effectively nothing but bored bureaucrats looking for things to do...which by definition usually means nothing positive.
Lord knows what they do with the money...but we can't see it re-invested in our area...everyone has wells for water...no natural gas....pay for own power and phone lines...pure tax grab scam...
Yes...It will take years...and millions of $$$$ but do it right the first time...but watch them carefully and especially any P3 deals...(and I am not a far left winger..) Your politicos will now have to try and "soft sell" the sticker shock.
You will need a lot of acreage for the plants....the plant design is generally spread out horizontally (vs vertically) on a site.....and for future expansion ....unless you create a few plants to share the load..
Good Luck