City of Powell River councillors have heard answers to questions they posed about joint treatment. In July, council chose phased consolidated treatment as the preferred option for treating the city’s liquid waste. This option combines joint treatment, a proposal to treat the city’s sewage at Catalyst Paper Corporation’s Powell River mill, with a future stand-alone consolidated plant. The choice was subject to a long list of conditions that had to be met before the plan could go ahead.
The experts arrived with the results of their studies and made presentations at the committee-of-the-whole meeting last week. One consultant reported on the results of tests that combined city sewage with mill effluent. Another provided an overview of health and safety issues. Yet another talked about pump stations, beneficial reuse of new infrastructure and issues with the Westview wastewater treatment plant.
The consultants are well qualified and pricey. City staff have included estimates of how much the city will pay for these reports in a cost summary of the liquid waste management plan. The estimate for the safety assessment is about $22,000, while the feasibility study of combining both streams of effluent, the second that the consultant has done, is almost $40,000. The information about the pump stations is estimated to cost $10,000 and legal costs for acquiring the land around the Townsite treatment plant is estimated to cost another $10,000.
This council has been exploring joint treatment since shortly after the 2008 civic election. The city did receive $150,000 from the provincial government for studying joint treatment, but the rest of the funds to pay for all the costs associated with the proposal have come from the city’s coffers. There has yet to be a tally of all the costs associated with the proposal over the three years the process has unfolded, but that should come when it’s finally decided one way or the other.
With technical questions answered, a lawyer poised to prepare a service agreement and land acquisition in progress, the main outstanding issue is funding. If the city’s grant application to the UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) Innovations fund is successful, joint treatment will proceed, according to council.
One other outstanding issue is a town hall meeting, part of the liquid waste management consultation plan, that had elected officials reporting back to the community about why they made the decision they did. If time runs out before a town hall meeting can be held, voters will nonetheless have a say when they cast their ballots in the November 19 civic election.
