RICHARD BENDALL
What
started, in 1992, as a community request for a solution to replace the
failing sewage treatment lagoons and spray field system, in Munster has
become a “sewergate” of bungling and mismanagement, made all the worse by
the fierce intensity of political interference and manipulation by
municipal staff.
The battle lines seem drawn between two
approaches. One is a community-driven request for an environment-friendly,
advanced wastewater treatment plant, on location in Munster and costing
roughly $3 million. It gets rid of the unwholesome lagoons and releases
water — clean enough to be swimable, by Ministry of the Environment
criteria— back into the area watershed. The other is the city’s
staff-driven pipeline-lagoon preference, by contrast, which would transfer
water out of the watershed, and would likely cost taxpayers between $15
million to $20 million.
The Canadian Institute for Environmental
Law and Policy (CIELAP)
stated succinctly that:
"water
transfers
between different watersheds and different
jurisdictions should be banned outright"
Where are we
today? The city has already squandered more than $6 million on two
conflicting (and rejected) engineering studies, a citizen-won Ontario
Municipal
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Board
Ruling, four city challenges to that ruling, ending in Superior Court,
(again won by the
community), and sewage hauling fees.
But no sod has been turned to build a treatment facility to correct
the problem.
While we watch
our tax dollars go down the road by the tanker truck-load, Mayor Bob
Chiarelli continues to ignore the promise he made in an April 1, 1998
letter: “On 11 March 1998 Council directed staff to retain an
independent consultant to reassess the preferred alternative identified in
the Environmental Study Report (expanded treatment lagoons and spray
irrigation) in comparison with other
technologies and proposals that can meet the requirements of improving
the level of treatment, can guarantee to meet the (MOE) compliance
schedule and can reduce the cost of the project.”
Why is it ---
four years later --- that not one of these goals has been met?
These days, one hears regularly about the city’s budget woes.
Are ratepayers aware their taxes might go up 12 per cent? Do taxpayers
agree that various reserve funds should be depleted so the city can
continue its wasteful habits? Do taxpayers see the connection between
our current budget shortfalls and boondoggles such as the Ottawa South
sewer collector, which cost $38 million to build and, three years
later, needed $17 million more to repair, only
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to operate at a fraction of its
design level?
Or consider, more
recently, the construction of the OC Transpo “go-huts,” built for several
hundred thousand
dollars more than commercial grade facilities would have cost, if city
engineering staff had not ignored the use of modern, on-site water and
sewage treatment technologies. As we speak, there are even more of these
infrastructure
fiascos in the planning stages, the Trail Road leachate
“solution” being just one of them.
Why are we not
looking at on-site technologies to meet the needs of rural communities such
as Munster, Manotick, and Metcalfe? That’s exactly the goal in our Official
Plan: “To implement pollution prevention measures at sources where
practical.” A savings of at least $12 million sounds
“practical” to me.
Munster residents
know the difference between $3 million and $15 million. Save $12 million in
Munster, then do that ten times more on other projects and the City will
have saved $120 million.
Mr. Chiarelli,
while you prepare your budget, save the crocodile tears for another day.
Starting with Munster, let’s put the brakes on Ottawa’s endemic
infrastructure mismanagement.
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Richard Bendall
is a Munster area resident who, along with the Concerned Citizens group, launched the Web site:
www.OttawaSewergateFiasco.com
to help find a solution for Munster’s wastewater treatment.
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