Discharge Only Duty – Help the Ocean
The greatest blessing to indoor living was the perfection of the flush toilet, by the eponymous Thomas Crapper in the late 1800’s. Although the device was invented in 1596, Crapper’s series of plumbing refinements made it an acceptable and highly valued indoor utility. It does so much for our convenience, who would be without one? But what about the ocean? What about Victoria spilling 130 million litres of raw sewage and its accompanying toxins and pharmaceuticals into the ocean every day?
The inappropriateness of this strategy, long debated, is agreed by all governments, as well as business, labour, tourism, and environmental interests, not to mention more than 80 percent of CRD residents. While there are some scientists who dispute any threat to the ocean, there is plenty of evidence of harm in the form of chemical contamination at the outlets, shellfish harvest closures and deleterious effects on the diversity of exposed marine organisms. The practice is in fact contradictory to provincial and federal regulations that mandate treatment.
A solution to this fundamental issue of civil life should engineered in the best and least intrusive manner possible. But it is imperative now that we reduce all possible stress on the ocean and its systems, for already the unavoidable impacts of temperature and acidity are taking their toll on ocean health. The ocean needs our help. This one is easy.
The CRD's current proposal for treating its sewage is so damaging to the environment, that it should be opposed. Instead of dumping into the ocean, the CRD wants to process sewage sludge into "biosolids," which the Minister of the Environment recommends be spread on forest lands to pollute watersheds and eventually to leach the toxins into the ocean.
The CRD's recommendation is to burn it in cement kilns and waste incinerators in the lower mainland, reducing the quality of that already-polluted airshed and inducing a higher incidence of asthma and allergies in children and adults. It's a costly, damaging, impractical and dangerous scheme.
Claiming that protecting the ocean is the sole imperative is simply blind foolishness. I'm sad to see Sierra Club of BC sink so low.
-originally posted May 17, 2010