Experts favour one big sewage plant for British Columbia’s Victoria region

In a report released in May 2009, a team of seven experts from Canada and the U.S. recommended building a centralized treatment plant in the gravel pit at Royal Bay to serve the Capital Regional District. To download their report, click on Final Report – Peer Review Team – Capital Regional Districts Core Area Wastewater Management Program.

The Capital Regional District has been considering three options for treating sewage in Victoria: four plants at a cost of $1.2 billion, six plants for $1.6 billion and 11 plants at a cost of $2 billion.

Team chairman Gordon Culp, an American engineer with 46 years of experience in the field, said the report is not making a hard and fast recommendation to put one plant in Colwood. But “we are suggesting it ought to be looked at in detail,” said Culp.

Greater Victoria could build its sewage treatment project in phases over the long-term, giving it better focus and flexibility in the future. By moving slowly, the Capital Regional District could add resource recovery of water, heat and energy from the waste stream as neighbourhoods need it. It could mean building a small number of core plants now, and adding to them in phases later.

To learn more about the sewage treatment issue in the Capital Regional District, click on stories published in the Victoria News-Colonist newspaper.

Posted May 2009