The city advertised the Open House as the:
"Munster Hamlet Pumping Station and Forcemain – Detailed Design" …It was anything but.

Attendees viewed a few "rough conceptual sketches" (not to scale, and lacking detail) of what the city intended to do. Basically the meeting was to announce that the city intended to bring the forcemain all the way through the village, with Perth Street, through Cockburn being its intended path.

During the formal presentation portion of the meeting city engineers discussed in vague generalities how they would reduce (but not eliminate) health risk, and that they would route the forcemain in the shoulder of the road, (but without specifics on how). They avoided discussion about detailed cost, telling residents to go to the library to find the information.

Since the city’s preference does not appear to consider public safety,
cost savings, or satisfying the public interest as priorities …residents
are asking, all the more, "What, exactly, IS the city’s agenda?"

Well water protection was the prime consideration of attendees at the December 9^th, 2003 meeting. This was followed by questions about overall cost. Resident’s were dissatisfied with the city’s responses on both issues.

Safety Issues: Discussion (at the December 9th meeting) regarding forcemain risks, and some of the deficiencies relating to the city’s proposed safeguards:

1. The city proposed using a "new" fused/welded-joint, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe, which is CSA approved for water mains but NOT CSA approved for sewage transmission. The city chose the HDPE for the stated reason that it has "fused/welded joints", which they argued, should be less prone to break (than the existing Richmond-Glen Cairn forcemain, which has ruptured five times). One of problems with this argument is that, in order to control excessive H₂S production ---which occurs when sewage turns "septic" traveling such distances through forcemains--- there will have to be periodic chemical injection points, gas-release valves, and "manual turn off valves" spaced approximately every kilometer apart. This means that there will, in fact, be at least 14 (counting the ends) ‘weak links’ in the chain, with 28 connections where sewage slow leaks and ruptures will most likely occur first. Furthermore, at the September 23^rd Open House, some of the consultants who were asked if forcemain ruptures could be 100% avoided. Their answer, "All forcemains break, sometime".
   
   
2. The city tried to argue another reason to not have concern about shallow well safety ---even "if" forcemain leaks occur. Their argument was that Richmond has silty clay soils, which are relatively impervious and inhibit water flows, so that when breaks occur, wells would be safe because the sewage travel would only be between 1 cm to 10 cm per day. There are two reasons why this is an erroneous argument. First, the SCADA alarm system is not triggered by slow leaks (i.e.: <10% of flows), therefore a slowly increasing sewage leak could continue for months, without detection, until a pattern of sick and dying residents gave cause for an investigation. [In fact, McManus Engineering reported, that the most recent (summer-2002) rupture of the Richmond-Glen Cairn forcemain, was preceded by "weeks to months" of slow leaking, causing erosion and final bursting of the pipe].
   
   
3. Secondly, the implication that hydrogeological investigation demonstrated that the Richmond area is protected by a homogeneous blanket of impervious silt and clay, is simply not true. The May, 2000, Trow Engineering "Log of Boreholes", conducted between Munster and Richmond showed that by far the largest occurrence of soil types west of Richmond, consist of "granular fill, sand and gravel till" …all very porous, with very little clay. There are over 70 homes in the area of these test holes that have reason for concern. To the east and north of Richmond, readers may recall that (circa 2000), the Trail Road leachate forcemain was originally scheduled to tap into the Richmond forcemain at Eagleson Road. This route was quickly abandoned when the Region found that the soils in the area were "granular soils" that were "too porous" to safely use as a preferred route. Now, it appears that the city is saying something completely different, to serve their blind ambition to cause the forcemain to go through Richmond. The city’s credibility is very thin on this point, exposing a rather cynical disregard for any credible interest in genuinely protecting the health and safety of residents.
   
   
4. Other assurances of water testing before and after spills, of rapid clean-ups and of efficient post-spill reporting to MOE and the Medical Health Officer provides little comfort to residents when the obvious "best practices" measure is to use procedures such as the "precautionary principle" …to avoid risk to health, entirely, by using the safety of a mechanical treatment plant to sustainably treat the sewage at its source. Use of the treatment plant, is such an obvious "no-brainer", when a forcemain, in this situation, would put lives at risk and is orders of magnitude more costly.
   
   
5. Risk-preventive measures are far better than post-disaster mitigation (mop-up) measures:

1. In the absence of any of the itemized costs, listed as the input information for Annex "E", the unsupported Annex "E" document presented in the May 2, 2003 Staff Report is totally meaningless. On reading Annex "E", by itself, it appears that the full cost of providing services, in the case of the forcemain option, is possibly understated by millions of dollars. Therefore, without supportive costing documentation, Annex "E" is without credibility and is not valid for cost comparison use in the Environmental Assessment (EA) process. City staff have been repeatedly asked to supply said documentation (View correspondence, requesting cost breakdowns), but do not appear able to substantiate any of their, ostensibly ---"out-of-a-hat"--- figures.
   
   
2. At the December 9^th Meeting, Head of Infrastructure Services, Richard Hewett, P.Eng., stated that it was his belief that the "90-year cost comparisons were essentially the same". Assume for a brief moment (by stretch of fantasy) that that were the case. Why, then, in the consideration of equal-cost options, would the city choose to tip the scales in the direction of the option with the greatest self-evident danger to the community’s shallow-well aquifer, requiring the highest patch-work of mitigating "safety measures", needing rapid damage-control response times for forcemain ruptures, entirely lacking any method of slow-leak detection, and associated with residents having to live under the ongoing (24/7) strain of family health risk worries?
   
   
3. Cost-savings can be achieved, by using the safer on-site treatment plant option at Munster. What is the Dollar-Value of public health? In this instance ...less cost means greater value!
   Excerpt from RVA Director's letter to Ottawa’s Medical Health Officer, Dr. Robert Cushman:
   "An onsite solution meets all the criteria and despite city figures to the contrary will perform at least as efficiently (cost wise and outflow) and at a lesser capital cost. If the city figures of O&M are to be believed then the city has decided the cost of human health and life to be a dollar figure! That is to say that the city admits an onsite plant will cost (capital) 1.5 to 2 million dollars less but they contend that in 90 years the O&M savings are worth the health endangerment and risk of death to 6000 persons."   (View correspondence)
   
   
4. Cost-Savings can be achieved by avoiding litigation. The decisions made by these last two Councils (with occasional help from a few staff), have given rise to more litigation against the City, than at any period in the Municipality's history. Most of the lawsuits relate to wasteful decision-making, poor engineering decisions, bad faith dealings, and possibly much worse. The Munster/Richmond forcemain scheme ---driven largely by Mayor Bob Chiarelli and Councillor Janet Stavinga--- has already spawned litigation that will be very costly for the city, and will generate additional lawsuits form several other parties (on this subject alone), if the city continues down its present slippery slope.
   
   
5. Current Budget Problems - City needs to cut 2004 spending by more than $120-M. The City has acknowledged a serious budget shortfall for the current spending year. The Munster wastewater treatment option that the City finally decides on will cost taxpayers in the neighbourhood of either $16 M. for a pipeline, or $4 M. for an onsite treatment plant ...a $12 Million dollar difference.
   Here is one citizen's submission to the City on how to save tax dollars.
   

Q&A Segment of the December 9th Meeting:

Excerpts from The Stittsville News, December 16, 2003:

"Question period at open house about sewage pipeline":

Munster resident Richard Bendall questioned the cost estimates for the project, saying that millions in extra costs related to the pipeline project are being ignored in the estimates.

…Richmond resident Harvey Snyder, addressed city of Ottawa Goulbourn ward councilor Janet Stavinga, who was in attendance at the open house, said that Richmond residents do not want the pipeline at all. He accused the council for having little respect for Richmond residents, ignoring a 700 name petition and the election results which he said were a virtual referendum in Richmond on the pipeline. Councillor Stavinga, while re-elected in Goulbourn as a whole, was outpolled by a three-to-one margin in Richmond in the recent municipal election.

Mr. Snyder said that the pipeline will fail at some point, adding that there are other ways than the pipeline through Richmond to solve the Munster waste water problem, such as an on-site plant or re-routing the pipeline through another area where there are no private wells.

There is nothing in this pipeline fiasco for the people of Richmond, Mr. Snyder claimed.

Councillor Stavinga, in her response to Mr. Snyder’s remarks, said that she cares very deeply about Richmond, but that decisions at city council are made in an informed way based on a number of factors. She said that a number of people are disputing the decision for the pipeline and remain steadfast in their view no matter how much documentation about the benefits and safety of the pipeline is provided.

She said that she will continue to be involved with the design process for the pipeline to ensure that it has the safety features necessary to protect the Richmond aquifer.

Franktown Road resident Susan Springthorpe expressed disappointment that there were no detailed design drawings on display at the open house, just crude sketches.

She expressed concern that the city was proposing simplistic solutions to problems that are not understood well, even by experts.

Between  two hundred to three hundred residents came out to the meeting, which was excellent given the pre-Christmas season, and in spite of another important event, a school play, that was pre-scheduled for the same evening. (Coincidence?)

NOT ONE resident present spoke in favour of the City's fool-hardy scheme.

It was the common belief that the Councillor present, along with the City staff and their consultants, were neither sincere nor convincing. After all, this is the same "gang" that rushed its "pipeline fix" through Council, without even consulting with the City's own "Environmental Advisory Committee", the very body established for public demonstration of the City's sincerity in doing the right thing. As it so happens, the Environmental Advisory Committee has subsequently declared, (without being asked by the City), that it is in favour of an "onsite treatment plant" for Munster, not the forcemain. Obviously, that's why they were not asked.

In the days leading up to, and following, the meeting, the Richmond Village Association has been deluged with comments from concerned residents, asking, searching, and groping for some sort of explanation or rational for subjecting six thousand residents to a needless sinister form of "Chinese (waste)water torture".
(View a sampling of residents' representative comments, HERE.)