Victoria is a city of 78,000 located on the southeastern tip of vancouver Island, and is the capital of the province of British Columbia. I live on a large island adjacent from Victoria to the East. I can see the larger buildings of Victoria across the Salish Sea 27 miles away from my favorite local beaches.
A resident of the Salish sea between Victoria and San Juan Island.
Yet I haven't visited Victoria in 20 years. Why? Because Victoria and its suburbs are still dumping their raw sewage directly into the Salish Sea as they have since my great great Grandparents lived in Victoria back in the 1880s.
A couple of days ago the provincial government refused to go ahead with the construction of the planned waste water treatment plant when Victoria's largest suburb of Esquimalt balked at being the site of the long delayed sewage treatment plant. In April of 2013 Esquimalt made zoning code changes designed to block the construction of the treatment plant. link
Now Governor Jay Inslee and all the Democrats in Washington's congressional delegation have weighed in objecting to the endless delays with letters to B.C. Premier Christy Clark.
Stop using Strait of Juan de Fuca as toilet, U.S. lawmakers tell B.C. premier
By Joel Connelly
The British Columbia government must make Victoria stop dumping untreated sewage into international waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, eight members of Washington’s congressional delegation said Friday in a letter to B.C. Premier Christy Clark.
The letter was organized by freshman Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and reflects longstanding frustration of Olympic Peninsula communities with the touristy “Garden City” across the Strait.
Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles had to spend millions of dollars in the 1970′s to build secondary sewage treatment plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made them do it, but federal money was made available to help.
In the meantime, Victoria and its suburbs continued to release a “gray plume” of untreated effluent from long pipes out into the Strait at Clover Point and MacCauley Point.
Clark fobbed off Inslee’s letter on her environment minister, who issued a non-response response.
She has now heard from two veteran U.S. senators and a majority of Washington’s congressional delegation.
The message: Clean up your act, for sake of the economies and environment of both countries.
Politics of sewage a capital disgrace Yet another treatment centre plan circles the drain as different levels of government bicker
BY VAUGHN PALMER
When flying in to Victoria on the float plane or helijet, one could see that clearing was underway on the site for the treatment plant at the entrance to the harbour.
But all that was placed in jeopardy earlier this spring when Esquimalt council turned down $20 million worth of “incentives” and instead voted to block construction at the aforementioned site.
Stymied, the regional district pleaded with the provincial government to impose the treatment plant on Esquimalt, council be damned.
But late last month, Environment Minister Mary Polak declined to step in, recognizing the hornet’s nest for what it was.
Instead, she reminded the region that it is under order from both the provincial and federal governments to start treating its sewage. Moreover, it risks losing a half-billion dollars worth of cost-sharing commitments from senior governments, as those expire in three years or so.
The latter prospect had local government leaders meeting with her on Friday, hoping to find an opening to save the project. But meanwhile, the capital region news media have been reporting the potential fallout:
Back to the drawing board with no obvious options. Cost to rise by $100 million and maybe more. Local ratepayers on the hook for the entire tab if the province and the feds take their scarce dollars to a place where they would be more appreciated.
From a Seattle Times editorial:
Victoria sewage creates new stink
In Washington, that might be considered an environmental crime. Officials here fret about every flush — they are proposing regulations that would make it illegal for commercial and recreational vessels to release treated waste into the sound. And federal regulators are pressuring the state into adopting standards for wastewater plants so tough they can’t be met with today’s technology.
All this while the Victoria area uses our shared waters as a great big toilet bowl.
Twenty years ago, Washington lawmakers called for a tourism boycott and Victoria’s unofficial mascot became a brown-suited gent who calls himself Mr. Floatie. Pressure from this state and the provincial government finally produced a plan to bring a sewage-treatment plant online by 2018. Down here, the furor died away. Except that two months ago the Esquimalt City Council refused to issue a permit for the new $721 million (U.S. dollars) facility. The provincial environment minister refused to overrule the town. Now years of planning might go down the drain.
Victoria sewage fouls wider area than thought
I was planning a trip to Victoria this summer for the first time in 20 years until I saw this news. Now I have no intention of visiting that filthy city until they clean up their act.
Boycott Victoria!
The letter to B.C. Premier Christy Clark from Governor Jay Inslee:
STATE OF WASHINGTON
June 10, 2014
The Honourable Christy Clark
M.L.A., Westside - Kelowna
Premier of British Columbia
P0 Box 9041, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, BC V8W 9E1
Dear Premier Clark:
We are writing to you concerning an ongoing issue that impacts the health of the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, as well as our regionally connected economies: wastewater treatment in Greater Victoria.
As the Governor of the state of Washington and the Executive of King County, we are very concerned by the lack of progress in treating wastewater and protecting the health and habitat of Puget Sound. We urge you to take action on this issue and resolve this impasse to ensure the timely delivery of wastewater treatment for this rapidly growing region, currently exceeding 300,000 residents. Victoria’s current lack of wastewater treatment impacts the state of Washington, King County, and the more than 3.5 million residents of the Puget Sound. We all share the regional and international waterways with Greater Victoria. Wastewater treatment in Victoria has been an issue for the state of Washington, King County, and the Province of British Columbia for over two decades. We believed and were encouraged by commitments and assurances by the Province of British Columbia that the region would soon be implementing a wastewater treatment strategy.
As you may recall, in 1993 Washington State tourism boycotts cancelled major conferences and hotel bookings in Victoria. That year, our two jurisdictions came to an agreement that Victoria would have primary sewage treatment in place by 2002 and secondary treatment between 2008 and 2013.
Years later, former Washington State Governor, The Honorable Christine Gregoire, added her support to the Province of British Columbia’s bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics, provided Greater Victoria once again commit to move ahead with adequate wastewater treatment. In 2006, B.C. Minister of Environment, Barry Penner, directed the Capital Regional District to implement secondary wastewater treatment due to water quality issues at its marine outfalls.
In 2010, residents of Puget Sound and Washington State House of Representatives applauded the approval of a wastewater treatment strategy by Minister Penner, which enabled the District to start the implementation phase of its wastewater management strategy. At that time, the District was on track to meet its regulatory commitments to the Province of British Columbia to provide sewage treatment for Greater Victoria by 2016.
In 2013, the District commenced construction on the approved wastewater treatment strategy, since renamed the Seaterra Program. However, the Seaterra Program deadlines for completion have been pushed out to 2018. We recently learned that your government has also suggested these timelines could even be pushed back, once again, to 2020.
It is now more than 20 years since your Province agreed to implement wastewater treatment in Greater Victoria, and yet today Victoria still lacks any treatment beyond simple screening. Past commitments have not been implemented. Delaying this work to 2020 is not acceptable. We are dismayed by the current developments concerning the construction of the wastewater treatment plant as part of Greater Victoria’s wastewater treatment strategy. While the District has an approved wastewater treatment strategy, its implementation appears to be stalled at the local level. After years of discussion, planning and commitments on an inter-governmental level, we urge you to get involved to ensure that this project moves forward.
Our region shares the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the health of this waterway is of interest to both the State of Washington and King County. The state, in partnership with King County and other local and regional governments, continues to take steps to improve the health of our waters and restore habitat. We make needed investments to protect the waterbodies we all share. We work collaboratively with all levels of government, tribes, businesses, and citizen groups to lead and coordinate efforts to protect and restore Puget Sound. We have invested heavily in ecosystem restoration and wastewater and storm water management projects and have hundreds of millions of dollars committed to future investments. King County is also directly supporting the Seaterra program through the approval of our Wastewater Treatment Division Director’s participation as a Seaterra Commissioner.
However, the continued lack of adequate wastewater treatment in Greater Victoria — at the entrance of Puget Sound — means Greater Victoria is not doing its fair share. This is of significant concern for the health of the rest of the region’s waterways.
Just as we share our common waterway, Washington and British Columbia share many common trade interests. The ongoing collaboration between our two inter-connected economies on issues such as wastewater treatment will be essential to all of our success. Left unresolved, Victoria’s lack of wastewater treatment has the potential to color other regional and national issues at a time when our two countries are working to re-establish steady economic growth through various cross-border initiatives. We would hope that this issue can be resolved at the local and provincial level and strengthen the foundation for regional economic growth and national cooperation.
We look forward to the day when all the communities that share the resources and benefits of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound make comparable commitments to clean water for current and future generations.
Sincerely,
Jay Inslee Dow Constantine
Governor King County Executive
cc: The Honourable Mary Polak, M.L.A — Langley, Minister of Environment, Province of
British Columbia
Alastair Bryson, Chair, Capital Regional District Board
Here is the letter to B.C. Premier Christy Clark from Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Derek Kilmer (WA-6), Denny Heck (WA-10), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Suzan DelBene (WA-01), Jim McDermott (WA-07), and Adam Smith (WA-09).
June 13, 2014
The Honorable Christy Clark
M.L.A., Westside - Kelowna
Premier of British Columbia
PO Box 9041, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, BC V8W9E1
Dear Premier Clark:
We are very disappointed to learn that the development of a new sewage treatment facility at McLoughlin Point has been delayed. For the last 20 years, American citizens have waited for solutions to water quality issues linked to British Columbia’s sewage discharge. Unfortunately, while Canada has acknowledged the importance of addressing this concern, there is now no plan to mitigate the persistent water pollution from Victoria, British Columbia.
As you know, more than 82 million liters of effluent without secondary treatment is being dumped into our shared waters in the Strait of Juan de Fuca every day. This type of pollution is not only detrimental to ecosystem vitality, but also can have dire human health consequences. This is simply unacceptable. We urge you to work with your colleagues at the local and federal level to find an agreeable solution so that an appropriate treatment facility is completed as soon as possible.
The strength of our economies in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia depends on the health of our waterways and natural resources. Washington state supports more than 67,000 commercial fishing jobs, in addition to our vibrant recreational fishing, boating, watersport, and tourism businesses. The practice of discharging this type and volume of waste violates environmental standards commonly held by our two nations. Furthermore, while significant treatment efforts have been made on the United States side of our maritime border, the effectiveness of these efforts is undermined without cross-border collaboration, treatment, and restoration activities.
In fact, scientists in both of our home countries have seen perpetually decreasing dissolved oxygen levels in our waters—an outcome linked with untreated sewage discharge. These changing dissolved oxygen levels endanger sensitive aquatic habitats vital to the Puget Sound’s marine economy. Together, we must work to ensure that we have adequate wastewater treatment facilities so that we can improve dissolved oxygen levels and the overall water quality in the Salish Sea to protect human health and the marine ecosystem.
Our countries have worked hard to coordinate international collaboration on major environmental problems in the past and we hope to work together to solve this problem. Since its inception in 2003, the U.S. and Canada have established the largest, most comprehensive ecosystem conference in the region – the biennial Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. This conference is a great example of how the U.S. and British Columbia have collaborated to bring together experts from interdisciplinary fields to discuss scientific research and chart a course for protecting and restoring the Salish Sea ecosystem.
The Salish Sea is an economic and cultural lifeline for the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. In fact, Washington state’s maritime economy supports 30 billion dollars in economic activity each year and provides 148,000 jobs. Due to the importance of these waters to both our countries, we ask that you work promptly to resolve this issue. Furthermore, as we continue to work towards restoring the Salish Sea for generations to come, we welcome ongoing collaboration on restoration, research and preservation efforts to best serve our people and our waterways. We hope you will stand with us as we work to improve the quality of our waters and reduce unnecessary pollution.
Sincerely,