Greater Victoria to stop flushing untreated sewage in sea

After years of bad publicity — including a campaign by "Mr. Floatie" — the British Columbia capital of Victoria plans to stop pouring millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the marine waters between Vancouver Island and Washington state.

Regional politicians last week approved a $1.2 billion plan to build four treatment plants to handle about 34 million gallons of raw sewage that Victoria and six suburbs pump into the Strait of Juan de Fuca each day. The cities are home to about 300,000 people.

"It's the first time we've had the region say, 'It's the direction we're going to go in,' " said Christianne Wilhelmson, with the Georgia Strait Alliance, which has pushed for sewage treatment for years.

Environmentalists say the treatment should improve the marine environment and public health. Others, however, argue the money could be better spent elsewhere, and that sewage pumped into the strait is sufficiently diluted by water and fast-moving currents. The strait separates the island from Washington's Olympic Peninsula and leads to Puget Sound.

For years, the effluent issue has been a sore point on both sides of the border, contrasting with Victoria's self-promotion as a tourist center, a gateway to the wilderness forests and rugged marine coast of Vancouver Island, and a city of prim and proper homes, shops, gardens and tea rooms worthy of its royal namesake.

"It's the only city in Canada where people resolutely cling to the notion that Victorian waste is different from other waste," said Lara Tessaro, a staff attorney with Ecojustice in Canada.

Efforts to shame politicians into adopting sewage treatment were marked by a humorous yet failed attempt by Mr. Floatie — the 7-foot-tall brown-clad mascot for POOP, People Opposed to Outfall Pollution — to run for mayor of Victoria.

Environmentalists say untreated sewage contains toxic chemicals, heavy metals and other contaminants that pollute waters and harm aquatic life. It's also one of many sources contaminating the region's killer whales, they say.

In 2006, the British Columbia government ordered the Victoria area to develop a sewage treatment plan.

"Since then, it's been, 'How do we move ahead?"' said Andy Orr, a spokesman for Capital Regional District, the government for 13 municipalities on the southern end of Vancouver Island.

A cleaner image couldn't come at a better time for British Columbia, which is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Vancouver, on the mainland east of Victoria, treats its sewage.

"Victoria's reputation has been tarnished by our sewage treatment," said Dean Fortin, who became Victoria's mayor last fall. "This is our opportunity to move forward."

State Sen. Kevin Ranker, whose district is in Washington's San Juan Islands just a few miles to the southeast, said treatment is long overdue.

"It will be a real shame if we bring hundreds of thousands of people to the region for the Olympics and you have that sort of environmental scar," he said. "This is an easy fix."

Tessaro said the turning point came in 2006 with emerging scientific evidence.

An independent scientific report commissioned by the area's municipalities concluded that relying on water dilution and tidal currents is "not a long-term answer to waste disposal." The province also released a report that found contamination of the seabed around sewer outfalls.

Last week, the capital district's sewage committee voted to build four plants in Esquimalt, Saanich East, the West Shore and Clover Point, Victoria. The plants could be online by 2016.

The plants would be built to secondary treatment levels or beyond, said Dwayne Kalynchuk, the district's project director. Municipal wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. are generally required by law to use primary and secondary treatment.

Sewage from the Victoria area currently is screened for solid objects larger than about a quarter inch, but it isn't treated beyond that. The wastewater is pumped out of two outfalls that run about 213 feet deep and about a mile into the strait.

Despite the mandate, some in the Victoria area say the risks are minimal, the costs of waste treatment far exceed the benefits and money is better spent on controlling contaminants such as mercury before they enter the system.

"There's no measurable public health risks," said Dr. Shaun Peck, a former CRD medical health officer and member of Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria, citing other studies.

Andrea Copping, a U.S. biological oceanographer who has studied the issue for years, said she didn't find too much to be concerned about — except right at the outfalls.

"Scientifically, the impacts are fairly small," said Copping, with the Sequim-based Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Marine Sciences Lab. "In terms of risk to marine environments, it's not one of the major risks. It's not that it's a zero risk. There are things that are likely to be more harmful."

But environmentalists say it's a pollution source that can be fixed.

"We're slowly, along with other pressures, changing what's happening in our environment," said Wilhelmson. "Once you cross that line, it's going to be too late."