Neighbours of the Church Road Well Field water treatment plant (WTP) in Granthams Landing are raising frustrations over lack of communication through the plant's expansion and a chemical storage shipping container's continued prominent presence at the site, despite promises the solution was temporary.
The water treatment plant's construction began in March 2022. The facilities came online in late June 2023 after pump testing earlier that year flooded sections of Elphinstone Avenue. Last spring, addition of a sodium hypochlorite storage unit to the plant site resulted in those living in the area expressing questions and concerns to the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD). And not all of those have been addressed to their satisfaction.
“There is a way to resolve the problems we face as a community… there is a way to safely continue operation of the WTP that doesn't come at our expense –– the SCRD need only find the motivation to see it done,” area resident Sean Carvajal told Coast Reporter in a Jan. 20 email.
Carvajal also emailed SCRD staff and elected officials that day, stating, “Since I first learned about the SCRD’s decision to expand upon the existing Water Treatment Plant at this location in 2021, I have made numerous visits to the SCRD office, communicated with various SCRD employees by email, written in to the 'Let’s Talk Forums' and spoken on the phone with SCRD staff… it is not without frustration that I find myself talking to new faces about the same issues that have been affecting us for 3 years. It is with even greater frustration that all of the commitments made by prior SCRD staff to remedy these issues have been abandoned."
SCRD area director responds
A Jan.19 West Howe Sound Community update circulated by area director Kate-Louise Stamford noted that in 2025 budget deliberations, options to consider a permanent structural addition to the pump house or fund a landscaping plan to hide the shipping container (or sea can) was before committee.
“I voted for the landscaping option because the staff were clear that the sea can was as safe, if not safer, than an addition solution and the $100,000 price tag would have added an almost 2 per cent tax increase to properties in Area F… I have since heard from neighbours that other options were discussed such as moving the sea can and I would like to clarify with operations staff if there is anything else we can do. Having complex items discussed simply as a budget line item do not always address the crux of the issue and I will continue to follow up,” she wrote.
Follow up is something Carvajal and neighbours Paul MacKeigan and Micheal English, who also reached out to Coast Reporter within the last week, say they have been asking for. In MacKeigan’s case, he reported waiting since last November to hear back from the SCRD on his inquiries about the storage unit.
Additional concerns
English took the proactive approach of reaching out to the SCRD by email on Jan. 14 with suggestions on landscaping to screen the storage unit should the board decide that item will remain at that the location permanently. His recommendation: use fire-resistant plantings. He further suggested the local government “ensure the landscaping is properly maintained until it is well established." He claimed this was not done with the previous landscaping at the site and what remains of those plantings are “a mess."
Another point of contention Carvajal wants reviewed is the “large, industrial looking parking pad,” which encroaches onto the road right of way adjacent to the site, which he said adds “an industrial nature in a densely packed residential community."
The pad supports the storage unit. Carvajal pointed out that its location “is 20 feet closer to my home than it ought to be." In his view, “the knowledge that there are thousands of litres of chemicals perched on this parking pad, elevated this high in the air above neighbouring properties and homes below is, in and of itself, enough to cause serious distress."
2025 work at the site possible
Further work at the WTP could be on the horizon in 2025, with a $274,000 PRV optimization project recommended as part of this year’s budget, which is set to be adopted Feb. 13.
The SCRD communications department explained in a Jan.13 email that project “will allow for water to be pushed from the Church Road Well Field to Sechelt and beyond in a more automated manner."
“The PRV will reduce the amount of staff time required and maximize the ability to move water from the Church Road Well Field which will allow our busy utilities division to work on other projects and develop efficiencies in our water systems."
According to Carvajal, “no one in my neighborhood that I have spoken with are against the WTP expansion in principle nor are we contesting the need for increased water supply to the SCRD. The people in my community, myself included, are believers that water does not belong to anyone and that it is a shared resource for all. We wish very much to play a supportive role in safe and fair access to this vital resource. The problem lies with the manner in which the SCRD has implemented the project, with the safety and integrity of our community having been jeopardized.”
