Arguing there are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in savings to be had, Oak Bay Mayor Nils Jensen says the Capital Regional District should revisit the idea of locating a regional sewage treatment plant in Esquimalt.
“Now that we know the costs of these new plants that have doubled and tripled the cost to the taxpayer, this is really what I believe is due diligence on the part of the committee to make sure that we’ve looked at all cost-effective options,” Jensen said.
Jensen has given notice that he wants the CRD’s sewage technical oversight panel and CRD staff to examine the feasibility of locating a single treatment plant — within existing zoning — at either McLoughlin Point or Macaulay Point in Esquimalt. If the panel concludes more land is needed, inquiries would be made with the federal government about acquiring needed land from the Department of National Defence, Jensen’s motion says. The motion will be debated by the core area liquid waste committee in two weeks.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, the sewage committee’s chairwoman, called Jensen’s motion “extremely and exceedingly odd.”
“I think if Nils wanted to be taken seriously with this motion, it should have been made about a year ago,” Helps said. “We have spent so much time, so much energy, so much public input and so much money working on solution sets that comply to a project charter that was unanimously approved by the committee and the board. So I’m quite frankly baffled by the motion.”
In 2010, McLoughlin Point was chosen by the CRD as the preferred location for a regional treatment plant. Overall costs of that plan were estimated at $788 million, including a tendered bid to build the plant at McLoughlin for $179 million.
But the scheme collapsed in 2014 when Esquimalt council wouldn’t approve zoning variances, and the province refused to intervene.
Since the McLoughlin option went down the toilet, capital region municipal governments have split into two groups to explore options: an eastside group composed of Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay, and a westside group of Esquimalt, View Royal, Colwood, Langford and the Songhees First Nation.
After more than a year of study and public input, those committees have developed five options. They range from a single regional treatment plant in Victoria’s Rock Bay neighbourhood to seven smaller plants around the region.
But costs have ballooned. The cheapest option, with a single plant at Rock Bay, is estimated to cost $1.031 billion. Cost of the plant alone, including land, is pegged at $459.2 million. Cost for a treatment system using seven plants would jump to $1.348 billion.
Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins said Jensen is not following the correct process by suggesting the Esquimalt sites. “We all signed on to the [project] charter, which is how sites would come forward,” Desjardins said. Under that process, municipal councils propose sites in their communities. “Esquimalt council, in the process of bringing sites forward, did not bring McLoughlin forward and there were a number of reasons why.”
The Capital Regional District has until the end of March to submit a detailed plan for wastewater treatment or risk losing $83.4 million from federal Crown corporation PPP Canada. The federal government has also committed $120 million from the Building Canada Fund and $50 million from the Canada Green Fund.
