Esquimalt wants assurances it will get some respect when sewage treatment within its municipality is considered, Mayor Barb Desjardins says.
“Esquimalt wants to participate,” Desjardins said Tuesday. “But we want to do it in a manner that we have some sense that our participation will be meaningful and we’ll be listened to.”
On Monday, a long and raucous meeting erupted at Esquimalt council when bureaucrats from the Capital Regional District, which is chaired by Desjardins, asked Esquimalt for “conditional approval” on a plan for sewage treatment.
After a lengthy discussion, including input from the public, Esquimalt councillors tabled the idea to a future date.
The wide-ranging plan, with few specifics, includes consideration of tertiary treatment plants at Clover Point in Victoria and either McLoughlin Point or Macaulay Point in Esquimalt.
Options at Rock Bay in Victoria and in the West Shore are also to be considered.
Desjardins said the CRD’s core area liquid waste management committee, of which the mayor is a member, has not respected Esquimalt so far.
For example, the McLoughlin and Macaulay sites were not proposed by Esquimalt, but were the result of previous plans kept alive by other politicians who have voiced cost concerns.
“Our requirements as a community have to be respected and listened to,” Desjardins said. “The political direction that has taken place down at the core table have not done that.”
The CRD is under the gun to come up with a plan to treat sewage, which is now screened for solids and then pumped into Juan de Fuca Strait.
Federal regulations require sewage treatment, the provincial government has insisted on it and neighbouring Washington state is threatening economic action if nothing is done.
The federal government has promised $253.4 million and the province $248 million. Cost estimates for the plans range from $788 million (the estimated cost of the 2014 plan for a single plant at McLoughlin Point) to $1.13 billion.
Last week, the federal government, which had previously insisted that the CRD have at least a plan ready by March 31, agreed to keep its financial commitments in place until Sept. 30.
In 2014, the CRD agreed to put a treatment plant at a former tank farm at McLoughlin Point and offered millions in compensation to Esquimalt. However, Esquimalt council refused to grant zoning changes for the plant’s height and width, and the plan fell apart.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who chairs the core area liquid waste management committee, said Tuesday she isn’t overly concerned about Esquimalt’s latest tabling manoeuvre.
“I guess they just needed more time,” she said. “We expect they will move ahead as part of the process.”
