Editor:
Sechelt has a new wastewater treatment facility. It only required $4 million of, not taxpayers’ money, but sewer user fees. The rest was all funded by the federal and provincial governments through different programs, including one that gave a nod to innovation.
But do you think the community and the media are happy that, after 20-plus years of discussion, we have a top-grade facility that won’t smell, won’t be noisy, and conforms to our 2011 Sustainability Plan? If so, I don’t hear it. Elizabeth May of the Green Party was more excited when she visited it than our own citizens.
The part that is truly amazing about the Water Resource Centre is that it could actually make money selling water for irrigation and gravel washing. And if you’re an environmentalist, you should be pleased that the water flowing into the ocean will be so pure. We don’t have to extend the pipes leading into Trail Bay another kilometre to meet federal standards because we’re going beyond them. That pipe would have cost around $3 million.
It is time to realize that this council and District staff have delivered something that is pretty miraculous. It is a top quality treatment plant in which other towns are already interested. If we are going to have even more people populating our planet, we need vision like this to make our towns livable. Water is becoming, more and more, our most valuable resource.
Let’s applaud a council that delivered on its promise for an odourless, noiseless and green wastewater treatment plant, did it in three years, and continues to have a healthy financial surplus.
Taylor Martin, Sechelt
