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The exchange of opposing viewpoints is normally what makes the letters and opinion pages two of the most popular sections in the newspaper. But lately, with sewage treatment, we have been wasting time debating the same points we’ve heard for 20 or 30 years.
The anti-treatment advocates say there’s no scientific evidence our raw sewage hurts the Pacific Ocean. The environmentalists say sewage is a dreadful pollutant and that science proves it.
None of this is new. They are the same old arguments from the same old groups of people—and they have nothing to do with major shifts in government policy that could force Victoria to treat its waste, no matter how much anyone disagrees.
These regulations have the potential to make sewage treatment mandatory for all Canadian municipalities.
You need to know about them.
1. Contaminated-sites regulations
When the B.C. government ordered the Capital Regional District to start treatment last June, there was a deeper message—stop contaminating the ocean.
A report the government commissioned from a Nanaimo-based environmental consultant showed the areas around Victoria’s two outfalls, Macaulay Point and Clover Point, were polluted with such things as zinc, mercury and copper.
Some of this stuff is found naturally in sewage and the pipes that carry it to the ocean. Others, such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, are from such things as gas and oil runoff from roads.
The levels were so high they exceeded provincial regulations and made the outfall areas official contaminated sites. A contaminated-sites label usually forces the landowner to immediately stop polluting and pay to remediate the land.
This was one of the first times the government had used the regulations to examine underwater land. Upon receiving the report, B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner ordered the CRD to start treatment. He said this report, among others, had tipped the scientific scales in favour of treatment.
Many believed the government simply could no longer condone Victoria’s sewage dumping once it was revealed that it violates the government’s own regulations. Doing nothing was not an option.
2. Fisheries Act lawsuit
If you dump something in the ocean that can kill fish or marine life, you are violating the federal Fisheries Act. It is a huge concern for such businesses as pulp or lumber mills, but apparently not for local governments putting sewage into the ocean.
The organic process that breaks down sewage also sucks oxygen out of the water and kills fish. Toxic chemicals like zinc, mercury and copper can kill or mutate them too.
Late last month the Sierra Legal Defence Fund received approval to sue the Greater Vancouver Regional District and the provincial government because the low level of treatment at some of Vancouver’s treatment plants (primary treatment, which does not remove heavy metals or toxins) was killing marine life and therefore violating the federal Fisheries Act. A judge agreed to let the private prosecution go forward.
If Vancouver is found to be violating the Fisheries Act for dumping primary- treated sewage, it could have huge ramifications for all municipalities.
3. Federal rules for secondary treatment
The federal government has a plan to make sure all effluent (treated sewage water) that comes out of Canadian cities has undergone secondary treatment. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment has already drafted regulations in this direction.
It’s not just the sewage itself but the various chemicals and contaminants in our waste that pose the risk, the group says. Of particular concern are endocrine disrupters such as birth control pills and hormones that are flushed down the toilet and can mutate marine life. As well, pharmaceuticals like shampoo, steroids and laundry products have untold effects on underwater creatures.
Former environment minister Rona Ambrose and previous Liberal counterparts have been clear the federal government will soon force municipalities to treat their waste and remove these contaminants. That means we don’t have any choice but to act.
The draft guidelines acknowledge that municipal treatment plants will be hugely expensive—$1.2 billion in Victoria—and propose extensive grace periods to alleviated any sudden, unaffordable costs.
The tentative deadline to submit the regulations to federal Environment Minister John Baird is November.
No one on either side of the sewage debate can argue these lawsuits and government policies are unimportant. Yet too many people are still reading off cue cards they wrote decades ago.
They are not qualified to lead the debate in 2007, and are taking us all in circles. We need to debate the situation as it stands today, not 30 years ago.
Reporter Rob Shaw covers sewage pollution and sewage treatment issues for the Times Colonist.
rfshaw@tc.canwest.com
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007