A four-hour meeting ended with no clear direction about what the community wants Sechelt council to do with a proposed biosolids processing plant and new sewage treatment plant.
"At a certain point, we are attempting to move forward in good faith based on comments that were received by the public last fall in October. That's what we attempted to do," said Coun. Warren Allan, chair of the biosolids handling facility sub-committee and chair of Monday's meeting.
"What we've heard tonight has given me cause to reflect, certainly, although at the end of the day, it's still a decision for council. But we will probably now have to go back and share with them the thoughts and comments that we've heard from you this evening to either reaffirm the decision that we've made or to open it up.
"If it turns out now that we are going to go back to square one, which it looks like some here would like us to do, or to move forward, which I've also heard this evening."
The Jan. 31 biosolids open house held by the District drew a large crowd of more than 100 people who came to hear what options the District had come up with after a public meeting last year directed them to look into options that had minimal smell or noise associated with sewage treatment.
The options presented were the various ways to get to a class A or class B biosolids product, which is the end result of taking the water out of wastewater solids. The resulting biosolids can be used for composting, garden application or tree farm application depending on the class A or B designation.
It was shown that currently the District has enough money through grants and reserves to build a class A or B biosolids plant at no cost to Sechelt taxpayers. The plant would ease the load currently on the two sewage treatment plants serving Sechelt on Ebbtide and Dusty roads, but it would not replace the two plants. That's something that must be done in the future, before Sechelt reaches its maximum discharge rate of 4,000 m3 a day into Trail Bay. Currently that discharge rate is 3,400 m3 a day. It is anticipated Sechelt will reach the maximum discharge rate within the next five years.
The District applied for federal funding to build a new $18.7 million treatment plant in 2006, but were denied. Again in 2007 they applied for a treatment plant that would now cost $21.7 due to inflation, but again they were turned down. After the second failure to obtain funding, the District started to look at phasing their plans for construction of a new sewage treatment plant.
"The other option then would be to build the biosolids facility first," Allan said. "By doing that, we would remove the processing of raw septage from our primary treatment plant by first having it processed in our new biosolids facility, thus extending the operating life of our existing primary treatment plant.
"So council had to make a decision, do the same thing again [seek federal funding for a new treatment plant] and expect a different result, or phase in the new plant by building part of it today and another part tomorrow."
While some in attendance had questions around the different types of biosolids treatment options, the most vocal group wanted council to relook at building the entire treatment plant now, before costs escalate with inflation over the years.
The group of citizens wore "something stinks in Sechelt" tags on their shirts and suggested the District's financial numbers were off and that the deadline for using grant funds could be extended and used for an entire plant, rather than just a biosolids facility. That group asked councillors at the meeting to put out a request for proposals (RFP) to get some cost estimates on a new plant and then reapply for funding based on those estimates.
"The simple message is what are they afraid of? Why not just take on this RFP approach. It will take two or three months to complete if it's done properly, and let's see where we stand," group spokesperson John Henderson told Coast Reporter after the meeting.
Also in a follow-up interview, Allan said he is unsure what the next steps are at this point and he will be speaking with council soon to try to come up with a plan.
