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By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen
Wakefield residents face several development questions, including the sewage plant and the planned extension of Highway 5, which they say could damage the roadside spring, a source of drinking water.
Opponents of a proposed sewage treatment plant on the Gatineau River north of Wakefield rallied Saturday, hoping to bring a loud protest to a public meeting on the issue Tuesday evening.
The MRC des Collines plans to build the sewage plant on one of two sites near Farrellton, trucking in sewage pumped from tanks across a wide region.
That sewage used to go to Gatineau’s treatment plant, but the city stopped accepting it last year. For now, it is being trucked to Chénéville, 130 kilometres east of La Pêche.
Opponent Wanda Gibson, who has a cottage on the Gatineau, says she’s worried that the plant will use old technology, and will put out more effluent than the river can handle in dry spells.
A variety of groups oppose the plan, including Friends of the Gatineau and the Ottawa Riverkeeper.
Many owners of summer cottages in the area haven’t even heard of the plan, Gibson said. “They’re going to come back in May to a done deal and a $5.4-million sewage treatment plant.”
Opponents of the plan don’t like the design, using aeration pits where sewage breaks down, with the treated water released to the river.
They argue that sewage should be dumped into a marshy lagoon, where the waste would break down and sink to the bottom. The result, they say, would be a compost-like material that could be thrown into the forest.
“It’s maybe a bit larger area, but it has no run-off,” she said.
A public meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in École Secondaire des Lacs, in Masham.
The engineering report for the MRC concludes that the Gatineau River flows at a rate of about 350 cubic metres of water a second, although in theory the sewage plant would put out 200 cubic metres of treated water per day. That’s a rate of more than 100,000 litres of river water to one litre of treated sewage, say the engineers, and it won’t do the river any harm.
The MRC mayors haven’t made a final decision, but mayors of Chelsea and La Pêche have spoken out in support of the plan.
Gibson isn’t convinced. The Gatineau is prone to slowing down dramatically in dry spells, such as the drought last spring and summer, she says. On that occasion, she had an extra four metres of land in front of her cottage.
“If the water can fluctuate that much, will they get the dilution they want?” she asked. Without dilution, “then there’s the risk of blue algae” and lasting environmental damage in an area where tourism and clean water are linked. The sewage question is one of a flurry of development-related issues that have all arrived in Wakefield at once.
Residents are protesting the planned extension of Highway 5, saying the risk of damage to the roadside Wakefield spring -a fastflowing source of drinking water for up to 5,000 residents -is unacceptable.
Their protest has the support of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Council of Canadians.
Meanwhile, an environmental screening by Transport Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the National Capital Commission concludes that the spring should be safe from damage by rock blasting, and from contamination by road salt.
There are also protests against expropriation of private land for industrial development at the village’s south end, including a plastic-foam factory.
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