A much larger battle in play

Billions of tax dollars are being squandered across North America every year by incompetent, narrow-minded, (or even -in some cases- corrupt), consulting engineers, politicians and bureaucrats who resist advancing to the lower-cost, high-performance technologies that are now on the shelf.

Why do cities do it? Sometimes it's through ignorance. In other cases, it is simply due to an unwillingness to change with the times. All too often, though, it's due, (for the most part), to the fact that large consulting engineering firms get that way by telling politicians and bureaucrats what they want to hear, in order to obtain more future business with municipalities. Also complicating matters, is the the way in which consulting engineers are paid, i.e.: on a percentage scale of the overall project cost. Designing old pipeline infrastructure technology to convey sewage over long distances, to old, inefficient, centralized treatment plants, frequently costing in excess of five times more than the high-performance, local treatment-plant technologies ---really pays big returns. The very "un-sustainability" of such projects also virtually guarantees consulting engineers lucrative, on-going, problem-solving contracts, on top of everything else.

On-site wastewater treatment technologies are the way of the future. The new and innovative communal WW-treatment technologies are local, so pollution is contained, and conveyance risks are avoided. Wastewater, treated on site, is kept in the local watershed. This also makes the de-centralized plants more eco-friendly and sustainable.

From a capital, operational and maintenance-cost perspective, communal treatment systems are far more sustainable (from a taxpayer-vantage) because of their simple up-keep and reliability. The cost of replacing our failing municipal infrastructures is what's killing North American cities. Mega-sewage treatment plants are dinosaurs from the past, and any city that is not adding small, local, treatment plants to service sewage-treatment infrastructure in sub-urban growth areas, is headed into a dark future. With such outmoded thinking, wastewater treatment costs will grow exponentially. In addition, sewage mega-plant "upsets" and "bypasses", along with repeated forcemain ruptures, will more and more frequently pollute our treasured waterways and our groundwater.

The Environmental Assessment (EA) process is severely broken, and has to be changed. The Ontario, Municipal Class Environmental Assessment Procedures are due for their 5-year review in 2005. Right now the process allows municipalities to fully control every aspect of the process. By MOE definition, the process is "proponent-driven" and "self-directed". That allows unscrupulous proponents to manipulate the process into whatever solution they wish, and totally side-step the public interest.

Obviously, the EA process is practically worthless the way it is now applied. The City of Ottawa abuses in the Munster Wastewater issue, clearly demonstrate that. Change ---now--- is critically important.

Richmond case... The fight must go on. It is crucially important the public battle  continue, to still stop the Munster-Richmond forcemain issue. The Richmond Village Association has told the Ministry of the Environment, that, "Rather than be the LAST VICTIMS of the old EA deficiencies, we want to be the FIRST VICTORS of an improved EA process".

The city's track record with Richmond's out-going sewage forcemain is clear enough reason to kill the present plan, so that residents won't have to worry about the city's new, direct, threat to their shallow well-water supply. If the Munster pressurized sewage forcemain is permitted to go through Richmond's shallow aquifer, it has all the pre-requisite earmarks of becoming a future "Walkerton with a vengeance!" (Some of those earmarks are, incompetency at the bureaucratic level, MOE being asleep at the switch ---or too emasculated to properly enforce adequate water source protection, and an Environmental Assessment process that has more holes than porous soil.)

Anti SLAPP legislation needed in Canada. SLAPP-actions in Canada, perpetrated by wealthy and unscrupulous companies, is out of control. Protection of citizens, acting sincerely in the public interest, should have the "right of fair comment" at their Town Hall council meetings. In Canada, this right can easily be suppressed or discouraged by high-paid consultants, serving only the private agendas of friendly city bureaucrats and/or politicians, who are all-too-ready to sue a citizen/ratepayer ---on behalf of their client ---when the public interest conflicts with an agenda that may NOT be so much in the public interest.

While many US states have developed stringent anti-SLAPP legislation, with more joining all the time, Canada ---with the exception of British Columbia--- has barely looked at this rapidly increasing problem. It's time that the big-business offenders were compelled to have some respect and tolerance for the rights to free speech of law abiding citizens of this country, and were punished for misuse of the courts, for their malfeasant purposes.

One of the few agencies trying to promote protective legislation against SLAPP abuses, by publicizing its occurrences, is an organization called the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

No time for weakness. For the sake of the wider "public interest", this is no time for individuals to give up, or accept defeat. There is far too much wrong with the system, and our present course is only leading to situations that are making things much worse for future generations.

We must continue to fight for safe, cost-effective, environmentally sustainable, eco-friendly wastewater treatment systems. Municipalities rank, at the top, as being some of the worst polluters of our waterways, and could do far better with fewer tax dollars ---if the money was properly spent on the wide assortment of improved technologies available to them.

We must continue to fight for the political and legislative changes that will institute, and enforce, these vital rectifications.