Two City of Powell River councillors indicated at a public meeting last week that the city is not currently pursuing a project that would see its sewage treated at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s mill.
Councillors Debbie Dee and Chris McNaughton addressed the co-treatment issue at a June 6 meeting of Catalyst’s community stakeholders committee.
The city had submitted a grant application to the Union of BC Municipalities’ Innovations Fund last year for $7.2 million to fund the project, but the application was unsuccessful.
Dee said the new council, elected in November last year, hasn’t met about the issue. “We have no updates on whether or not we’re going to pursue, I don’t believe we would pursue, a rewrite of the grant application,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ve talked at all about any new grant cycles or what our strategic planning is going to be with regard to liquid waste management. We need to get back on that ship, so to speak.”
McNaughton pointed out that the provision for co-treatment was removed from the new AIP (agreement in principle) between the city and Catalyst, not to eliminate the possibility, but to separate the two opportunities. “We had asked both ministers and ministry officials to give us an analysis of what the shortcomings of our application for gas tax funding were,” he said. “We got a response in mid-May after a significant amount of prodding. The two main issues were, we needed to significantly rewrite the application and we needed to complete the liquid waste management planning process.”
There hasn’t been either a steering or advisory committee meeting up to now, McNaughton added. He also said council was trying to be “somewhat practical,” since Catalyst has been in creditor protection since January and is now going through a sales process. “Until all of those issues are resolved and we know we have an active, working mill in our community, this council is not going to entertain pursuing a partnership right now,” he said.
Kevin Clarke, Catalyst’s president and CEO, raised co-treatment in a letter to the federal and provincial governments seeking assistance. McNaughton said he and Mayor Dave Formosa did not raise co-treatment as an issue during a meeting with Premier Christy Clark, provincial officials, Catalyst representatives and representatives of unions and other communities in Victoria on May 29. “We’re just, as a city, as a council, being mindful of the fact that there are other things at play here that are significant in nature and so we’re not pursuing it.”
Dee added that a rewriting of the application or completing the liquid waste management plan is going to require significant funds.
