Editor:
Since 2009, I have attended every sewage meeting and most of the sewage commission meetings. The overwhelming consensus from these meetings was that the District should aim to fulfill Sechelt’s sustainability action plan to: “become a zero waste community and to treat effluent to the highest standards and reduce noise/smell to the greatest extent possible.”
It is also written into the District’s sustainability plan, available on the Sechelt website, to “identify and pursue opportunities to recover energy and other resources from treated effluent” and “to continue to reduce water use in public parks and facilities.”
By following this strategy the District will save an estimated $3 million by not needing to build another sewage outfall. The new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) will produce the highest quality effluent. Rather than dumping all the effluent as waste into the Strait of Georgia, Sechelt can reclaim much of it and put it to good use. This will lessen the demand on our limited supply of potable water resources.
Greater Victoria can only look on with envy at the remarkable achievement Sechelt has produced with our new WWTP. No one in Greater Victoria wanted a sewage plant in his neighbourhood that would be unattractive and produce foul smells, and this sentiment has made it all but impossible for Victoria to find a location for a plant.
Perhaps Victoria should come and take a look at Sechelt’s water resource centre. It is an attractive building, its treatment process is odour-free, and the end product can be used for irrigating parks and golf courses and for industrial uses such as washing gravel at the Lehigh gravel pit. The facility is a real tribute to this Council’s innovation agenda.
As the project nears completion, mayor and council should be proud of their accomplishment at getting this facility built despite some strong opposition. They made a promise and they delivered.
Greg Deacon, Sechelt
