Sewage-project cash likely 'within weeks' - Work on $782-million network could start in 2013, finish in 2018

By Kim Westad, Times Colonist July 5, 2012
The Capital Regional District is expecting the federal and provincial governments to announce their shares of sewage treatment funding "within weeks," CRD chairman Geoff Young said Wednesday. "I hesitate somewhat to say 'within weeks,' because I'm aware I've made forecasts before, but I continue to expect we will finalize an agreement with regard to funding this summer," Young said. The provincial government ordered in 2006 that secondary sewage treatment be in place in the region by 2016.  But a delay in funding announcements for the provincial and federal governments' portions of the project has pushed back the completion date, said Jack Hull, the project manager. If the funding is announced soon, construction could start in 2013, with completion in 2018, he said. The cost of the $782million project is to be split equally between the CRD, the province and the federal government. The CRD's treatment plan was accepted by the government in the fall of 2011, but the project has largely been in limbo since. The approved treatment plan calls for a liquids-only treatment plant at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt. There, the liquid would be extracted and the sludge left over would be piped 18 kilometres to a biosolids digestion facility at Hartland landfill in Saanich. Underground storage tanks would be built at Cadboro Bay. Currently, sewage is sieved through a six-millimetre metal screen before it is piped about a kilometre into the ocean. There is much debate as to whether secondary treatment is needed, with those opposed to it arguing that ocean dilution works and does not harm the environment.