As a critical deadline for funding looms, Capital Region politicians are once again butting heads over where a sewage treatment plant should be built.
Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen has put forward a motion to revisit the idea of building it at Esquimalt’s McLoughlin Point.
He argues the $788-million price tag would be much cheaper than options currently on the table, all involving a treatment plant in Victoria’s Rock Bay and ranging in cost from about $1-billion to $1.4-billion.
“When the facts change, I think we all have to be open to look at other solutions,” Jensen told CTV News. “There is the potential here to save hundreds of millions of dollars and I think that’s what the taxpayers expect of us.”
But Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who chairs the Capital Regional District’s core liquid waste management committee, says the idea of building a plant at McLoughlin Point has already sailed.
“I think it’s bizarre, I really do,” she said. “An appropriate time for this motion would probably have been last year, if ever, because we’ve spent time, money, energy and a lot of public input.”
She said the suggestion that other municipalities should dictate what will be built in a neighbouring district goes against principles of local government. Esquimalt council ruled out McLoughlin Point as a potential site in 2014.
“How do you put something in a municipality that doesn’t want it? I don’t get it,” Helps asked.
But Jensen said the cheaper option warrants a second look, and plans to submit his motion to the CRD in a couple of weeks.
“If to keep an open mind is bizarre, well, so be it,” he fired back in response to Helps’ criticism.
Pressure is mounting for the CRD to come to a decision.
It has just over two-and-a-half-months left to finalize a site or sites for a treatment plant, or it risks losing upwards of $83-million in funding from the federal government for the badly needed infrastructure.
Helps said the CRD’s new options could involve BC Hydro’s old property in Rock Bay, something the Crown corporation confirmed Tuesday.
Victoria pumps some 130-million litres of untreated effluent into the Juan de Fuca Strait daily.
While some scientists have said the ocean acts as a “toilet” that disperses waste without much environmental impact, environmentalists as well as officials in neighbouring Washington State have criticized Victoria for pumping sewage directly into the ocean.
