Canadian City Will Stop Dumping Poop Into Puget Sound For Olympics

SEATTLE — For years, the British Columbia capital of Victoria has dumped tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage every day into the waters separating Washington state and Vancouver Island.

The resulting bad publicity stood in contrast to the city of prim and proper homes, shops, gardens and tea rooms worthy of its royal namesake. Victoria promotes itself as a tourist center, a gateway to the wild forests and rugged marine coast of Vancouver Island.

But leaders of both Victoria and Vancouver, 70 miles away, hope the political tension caused by the sewage will be solved as Vancouver prepares to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

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 strait separates the island from Washington's Olympic Peninsula and leads to Puget Sound. The city and suburbs are home to about 300,000 people.

"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."

Environmentalists say untreated sewage contains toxic chemicals, heavy metals and other contaminants that pollute waters and harm aquatic life. But others in the Victoria area say the risks are minimal and that the costs of waste treatment far exceed the benefits.

The sewage has been an ongoing saga in the region over the years. 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 People Opposed to Outfall Pollution, better known as POOP _ to run for mayor of Victoria.

Finally, in 2006, the British Columbia government ordered the Victoria area to develop a sewage treatment plan after an independent report commissioned by the area's municipalities concluded that relying on water dilution and tidal currents was "not a long-term answer to waste disposal."

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The province also released a report that found contamination of the seabed at outfalls, where the sewer pipes drain.

"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.

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 province ordered the plants to be online by 2016, Orr said.

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.

Some believe the plants will do little good. "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 monitoring studies of the sites.

But environmentalists believe it's important to take a stand against sewage now.

"We're slowly, along with other pressures, changing what's happening in our environment," said Christianne Wilhelmson, with the Georgia Strait Alliance, which has pushed for sewage treatment for years. "Once you cross that line, it's going to be too late."

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On the Net:

Capital Regional District: http://www.wastewatermadeclear.ca

Georgia Strait Alliance: http://www.georgiastrait.org

Responsible Sewage Treatment Victoria: http://www.rstv.ca

Comments

[larry278]

It's way past time BC, but thanks anyway.

[ranchero42]

My favorite irony? The name of the popular ferry from the U.S. to Canada in these waters is the Black Ball Line.

[LeeCalif]

Gee. Sounds just like San Diego.

If beach goers only knew about the sewage plumes from San Diego and Tijuana.

[BannedNBoston]

If you take algae and light it up with red and blue led lights 24 hours a day you can make smaller better sewage treatment plants.

[mamacat]

Sewage should be treated as a resource, not dumped untreated into what should be pristine fishing waters.

[llisa]

I had no idea developed countries were still doing this sort of thing.

[LiberalBuzz]

:Unbelievable. After all these years of showing how toxic dumping is harmful to the environment and thus US, this cr pa STILL goes on?

[SwingingFromCenter]

Pretty sure the ocean can handle it.

[LiberalBuzz]

Willing to bet your life on it?

[mamacat]

The oceans had no trouble handling our waste up until the point where the number of humans on the plantet started doubling every 13 to 15 years.

It isn't just a matter of human fecal matter, but of industrial waste dumped into the oceans. The extent of the dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River is the size of New Jersey, there are other dead zones along our coasts, oysters off the coast of the U.S. Pacific Northwest have failed to reproduce for the last four years, there is an area off of the Pacific Palisades in Southern California that is so heavily contaminated with toxic industrial waste that the sea life in the area is not safe to eat. The Santa Monica Bay is routinely closed to swimmers because of pollution washed into it after rain storms, and even since I was a kid eating the fish from there was gauranteed to make one sick. So, the oceans cannot clean up the toxins we are dumping into them, unless one is talking about a geological time scale.

[delvis]

as an American that can actually see Vancouver Island , building proper sewage treatment plants would go along way to improving the water quality of Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Water both countries share should be held to the same standards.

[SwingingFromCenter]

If you think human interference in terms of waste has ANY effect on the Puget Sound, you're completely wh.acko.

[delvis]

its not just poo and pee that ends up in the sea it is things like condoms, feminine products , diapers , drugs and most anything that flushes.Sewer treatment plants stop most of those things and Victoria gives us those things for free

[AmandaBC]

I really don't care much for the Olympics, but if that's what it takes to finally solve our sewage problem, they're more than welcome.