A Selma Park resident who has experienced years of flooding due to groundwater issues in the area wants to know why the current council nixed a committee formed under the last council to seek a solution and why the regional district “hasn’t forced homeowners who they know have leaky pipes to fix them.”
The resident, Chuck Gould, also said he wants to see the District of Sechelt “seriously consider” extending sewer to Selma Park to help deal with alleged leaking septic fields in the area that he believes are failing as a result of excess groundwater.
Phosphorus and nitrogen were found in late January in one water sample taken by the District of Sechelt from a pipe that drains onto the foreshore in Selma Park.
Both substances are often linked to human waste, but Sechelt Mayor Bruce Milne said a leaking septic field may not be the culprit.
In an email to Coast Reporter, Milne said: “It could also be caused by (misapplication of) garden and lawn fertilizers,” and suggested more testing would have to be done.
Vancouver Coastal Health did its own testing in 2014 and 2015 at the prompting of residents in Selma Park and found no fecal coliform in the samples they took from four pipes that drain onto the Selma Park beach near the Brenner Road beach access. Another test done this month resulted in the same findings.
“High counts of fecal coliform bacteria is assumed to be contaminated with septic effluent,” said Darren Molder, senior environmental health officer for the Sunshine Coast. “This is the way that public health agencies gather evidence [whether] storm water has septic contamination or not.”
When Milne was asked why a previous committee consisting of representatives from the District of Sechelt, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) and the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) to further investigate groundwater issues in Selma Park was allegedly disbanded when his council took office, the mayor said he wasn’t aware of any such group.
“Certainly it was not a standing committee or any committee formed with terms of reference. Nevertheless, the current council supported district staff’s continued work with the SCRD, MOTI and the residents to look into and address issues where possible,” Milne said.
“Council also authorized a study by an independent engineering firm into the groundwater situation in 2015. This study identified multiple factors contributing to the situation, none of which were linked to district actions. My office has been working on this issue and with the residents for well over a year – not to their satisfaction, admittedly.”
At a March 30 public works, parks and environment committee meeting, Sechelt councillors moved that staff write a letter to MOTI and the SCRD urging action on the issue, as the district believes the excess groundwater in Selma Park is either due to leaking waterlines, which are under the SCRD’s jurisdiction, or excess groundwater, which no government body takes responsibility for.
The inclusion of MOTI has to do with some works undertaken by the ministry in 2011 that Gould said caused extreme vibration in the area.
“The land shook. I was standing on my sundeck with John, the former arbourist for the District of Sechelt, and the flower pot, when they were doing their highway construction, moved eight feet across the deck, vibrating,” Gould said.
He said he and many of his neighbours believe the vibrations caused cracks in SCRD waterlines.
Bryan Shoji, general manager of infrastructure services with the SCRD, said staff has conducted tests on their main waterlines and to date have found no leaks in those main lines in Selma Park. However, meters were installed on seven homes in the area at the request of community members and five of those homes were found to have leaking water lines between the main line and their houses, which is the responsibility of the individual homeowner to fix.
Four of those five homeowners have undertaken fixes, Gould included, who said his fix cost him about $2,200.
He’s upset the final homeowner hasn’t been forced by the SCRD to fix her leaky pipe, but Shoji said the SCRD doesn’t have that ability.
“What we do have in our bylaw is the ability to turn off their water and that’s what we’ve done,” Shoji said.
“I guess it’s a part-timer and the only time she comes up, I guess she just hooks up to her neighbour. It’s not a cheap fix, so I guess she feels the expense isn’t worth the effort for the number of times she uses the house.”
Although other leaky pipes on private property may be contributing to groundwater issues in Selma Park, the SCRD hasn’t budgeted to install water meters for the entire area until 2017, at which time more leaks may be identified.
Regardless, Shoji said issues with excess groundwater are not uncommon on the Coast.
“What happens is because we have a lot of hardpan, a lot of glacial till, and we’ve got very little overburden, whatever water hits the top of Mount Elphinstone, it just runs down in that little layer above the hard pan and it will find weak spots and that’s where it comes out,” Shoji said.
“Even during a drought you can see these. I mountain bike a lot and you can see these all throughout the trail networks, and this is where there’s absolutely zero water mains located.”
Gould is convinced the groundwater issues in Selma Park aren’t naturally occurring, and he’s not satisfied with any of the answers given by public officials to date.
“They always talk in terms of what is not their responsibility,” Gould said. “I think they’re scared to get involved. I think they’re scared because of Seawatch.”
