The potential new home for Greater Victoria’s sewage wastewater treatment facility has been narrowed down to two locations.
The long-awaited plant should either be built at Rock Bay in Victoria, McLoughlin point in Esquimalt – or both, according to a report by the Core Area Wastewater Project Board released on Wednesday.
It comes after the provincial government effectively seized control of the project in May, following years of back-and-forth among CRD politicians who couldn’t agree on where the plant or plants should go.
The board said it took prior feedback from public consultations into consideration when naming the two options, including concerns about the appearance of the facility, cost to taxpayers and air quality.
In all of the options, bio-solids would be piped to the Hartland landfill in Saanich.
The federal government is dangling $83.4-million in PPP Canada funding for the project as long as an agreement on a site is made by Sept. 30.
That deadline was extended from the previous deadline of March 31 when it became clear that no decision would be reached in spring.
The province is also kicking in $248-million for the project, the budget for which surpassed $1-billion earlier this year.
A final report on the project will be made available to the public on Sept. 7 and presented to the CRD on Sept. 14.
If it gets the green light, it must still be approved by the provincial and federal governments to be eligible for all levels of funding.
Greater Victoria pumps some 130-million litres of untreated effluent into the Juan de Fuca Strait daily, and environmentalists as well as officials in Washington State have criticized the region for pumping sewage directly into the ocean.
