The District of Sechelt is moving away from reliance on a massive new development to fund its sewage infrastructure and towards a series of modular, expandable treatment plants.
At a Jan. 10 workshop at the municipal office, plans were discussed to move ahead with a 1,000 to 1,200 unit sewage treatment plant on Dusty Road, one that could be built "without any financial difficulty," said Mayor Cam Reid.
Thanks to the accumulation of development cost charges (DCCs) for sewer infrastructure in the District's coffers over the last decade, Sechelt's department of finance will be able to pay the initial capital cost without borrowing any money, Reid said. Debt for the plant could be paid by DCCs attached to new development, not by current residents paying for future development.
"We can pay the debt and principal on $2 million and will have about $180,000 a year left for labour costs, and for West Sechelt," said director of finance Doug Chapman, referring to the $11 million cost of putting in collector sewer lines to West Sechelt, a long-standing commitment the District has made to that neighbourhood.
And if the 1,600-unit, four-storey Silverback development eventually gets built, Reid said the DCC dollars it represents could be very helpful. Chapman said the plant's drawings can be revised "if Silverback decides to come aboard," while Coun. Keith Thirkell noted Silverback developer Gabriel Khoury is taking longer than the District would like in bringing forward a proposal that satisfies the District's needs.
Most Sechelt councillors and Reid attended the workshop, as well as Chapman, Sechelt administrator Bill Brown and representatives from Construction Aggregates and Kelowna-based wastewater engineering firm Urban Systems Ltd.
The District is cooperating with Construction Aggregates after having expropriated almost five hectares of land from the gravel mines in 2007, with plans to build the new Dusty Road modular treatment plant at a lower elevation than the existing one, while exposing a pillar of valuable gravel under the existing plant to be extracted by Construction Aggregates.
"We recognized that gravel extraction [around the site] would leave our plant on a pinnacle," said Reid. "If we stay there, we're precluding the extraction of $7 million worth of gravel."
Moving downhill will also save the District from having to build a new $1 million pump station.
The new plant would be a modular system with tertiary treatment, which would mean significantly cleaner outfall than now comes from either the Ebbtide or Dusty Road sewage treatment plants. Thirkell said it would result in "virtually clean water going into the Strait [of Georgia]."
The District's department of engineering estimates Sechelt has five years of sewer capacity left, a number some community advocates have claimed is optimistic. Reid said development in the District normally adds about 100 to 120 units to the system each year. As of October 2007, there were more than 3,020 units in the system.
Approved developments within the District will account for the next 577 units of sewer capacity, while the proposed Allen-back development (200 units), Oracle Properties (150 units) and The Cliffs development (47 units) could mean another 397 units could be built out over the next few years, for a total of 974 units coming online - a number the current system cannot support.
While Reid said the sewer capacity is not yet a dire situation, he allowed that "we're all becoming more uneasy as we see bigger projects taking more capacity." Thirkell said the modular plant and future plants adjoined to it could be a 25-year solution for the District."I think we're finding a comfort level that's a happy medium for all of us," he said.
