I am discouraged by the misleading and incorrect information sent to Oak Bay News in a letter by Mr. Jack Hull and published on Oct. 31.
The statement that it is OK to discharge secondary effluent into the Strait of Juan de Fuca is incorrect, because it is NOT OK to pump effluent containing multi-drug resistant bacteria (Superbugs), micro-plastics and hundreds of soluble chemicals into the ocean, because the point of building sewage treatment plants is to remove contaminants from the ocean and secondary treatment does NOT do that, only tertiary treatment followed by Advanced Oxidation (UV+peroxide) treatment will and this is routinely done in tertiary treatment plants such as Dockside Green.
Dockside Green type of plant can be scaled up and there is nothing incompatible with our low density neighbourhoods and Sechelt is a perfect and progressive example of tertiary treatment plant, but it needs sludge disposal system (like all sewage treatment plants do) such as gasification.
There is nothing latest in the now defunct CRD secondary treatment system, it is 50 year old technology that needs to be put to rest along with the CRD plan. Even the lowest cost option statement is not credible, such study was never done, CRD always refused to do an independent study. The statement that tertiary, decentralized system will cost more is likewise not credible because such independent cost study has not been done.
If the CRD initiatives are as bad as its now defunct sewage treatment plan, any municipality that is asked to host it SHOULD be able to veto it.
It is also misleading to continually bring the fear of lost funding into the equation. Letter from the government shows that the funding is there, the new plans of course need to be approved.
The following two paragraphs on academic and professional qualifications speak volumes on the type of attitude we have seen for years at the CRD, only consultants and engineers have any credibility, the public, no matter how well informed, have none. Therefore, we should not give any credibility to those that can explore the internet and can read and think for themselves.
This is exactly the type of thinking that got us into the mess we are in right now and this cost $60 million with nothing to show for it. And if nothing changes at the leadership level, Mr. Hull and experts like him will continue to waste taxpayers money. It is obvious that we need new thinking at the municipal as well as at the CRD levels.
Thomas Maler, Ph.D.
Victoria