Greater Victoria鈥檚 planned sewage system now has dollar figures attached, and it鈥檚 time for residents and politicians to make the hard decisions. We owe it to ourselves to study the options and costs carefully, and the politicians owe it to us to listen to the feedback.
On Friday, a report from the Capital Regional District outlined costs for the five options for sewage treatment, costs that range from $1 billion to $1.3 billion. That鈥檚 significantly more than the $788-million estimate for the original plan, which was scrapped this year.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who chairs the CRD鈥檚 sewage treatment committee, said those big numbers are 鈥渃onceptual鈥� costs, and are likely to drop as the details are worked out. She points to the previous plan, which was pared down from its original conceptual costs.
Using that plan as an example, however, is unlikely to ease the fears of residents who recall the $60 million they shelled out for a project that produced nothing. With the ever-ballooning Johnson Street Bridge project looming behind every financial conversation in the region, few of us have faith in the cost estimates for any public project.
However, at least we have relative numbers to help us decide among one, two, four or seven plants, and secondary or tertiary treatment. We can decide how much those options are worth to us because we have a notion of how deeply we are going to have to dig into our own pockets.
For the cheapest option, a single secondary-treatment plant at Rock Bay, annual costs per household, after senior government grants, would range from a low of $252 in Colwood to a high of $583 a year in Oak Bay. The annual bill for homeowners in other municipalities would be: Saanich $369, Victoria $509, Esquimalt $465, View Royal $427 and Langford $412.
Multiple plants would hit the West Shore particularly hard because the funding formula assigns the cost of additional plants to the communities that use them. The two-plant option would see a Colwood homeowner鈥檚 annual sewage bill jump to $766, compared to $252 for a single plant.
Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins suggested on the weekend that the funding formula should be changed so that costs are distributed based on sewage flow or other factors. She argues that multiple plants have many advantages that would benefit the whole region, so it鈥檚 only fair to share the costs.
It鈥檚 late in the day to make that pitch. And why should other municipalities underwrite plants they won鈥檛 use when the regional benefits are debatable?
The cost structure pushes us toward a single plant, but so do many arguments from engineers. After years of study, the previous plan concluded that a single plant was the most effective use of our money. If some communities want dedicated plants, they should pay.
But now it鈥檚 time for the voters and taxpayers to be heard. Public consultations are planned, but open houses attended by a few hundred people are hardly a definitive way of gathering public opinion. Most of those who show up will be the ones most passionately involved in the issue, even though the decision will affect everyone in the core area.
The decision-makers must rely on more than a few conversations over coffee and PowerPoint. Last time, we paid a heavy price for ignoring the wishes of the people. It mustn鈥檛 happen again.
