Capital Regional District approves Victoria-area sewage treatment plant

The Capital Regional District voted in favour of building a regional sewage treatment plant at McLoughlin Point in Esquimalt,Wednesday.

The approval follows the recommendation of a provincial project board appointed to take a fresh look at the options available and deal with residents' concerns.

McLoughlin Point was previously chosen by the CRD as the preferred site, but the plan fell apart when Esquimalt's city council refused to approve the required zoning.

"Is McLoughlin what I envisioned for the region? No," Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins said. "But I think Esquimalt, through its processand its values and its determination, brought the plan proposed for the region to a better place."

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The new proposal forMcLoughlinPoint includes a smaller footprint and significant improvements to landscaping, project board chair Jane Bird said last week.

The vote was nearly unanimous, withonlySaanich Mayor Richard Atwell voting against it.

"We're never going to come up with a plan where everybody is happy," View Royal Mayor David Screech said. "It's just not going to happen, but we've come full circle. It's a good plan, it's good for the region we can move forward and put this chapter behind us."

Other sites included in plan

Currently, waste is discharged into the oceanwith only primary screening, to the dismay of environmentally-conscious residents and Washington State.

While liquids treatment will occur atMcLoughlinPoint, solids processing will be located atHartlandlandfill inSaanich.

The CRD noted in a press release that the plan includes "a process to develop an integrated resource management solution for the region's waste" andacommitment to study wastewater treatment inColwood.

Funding deadline just two weeks away

The decision is a major development in the CRD's decades-long battle over where and how to treat sewage from the region.

The federal government wanted a final decision on a location by Sept. 30 or the project could have lost $253.4 million in federal funding.

The province has committed to providinganother $248 million toward the project's $765 million budget.

The CRD facesa deadline of 2020 to provide secondary sewagetreatment. Next steps includefinancial and regulatory approvals from the provincial and federal governments.