2001
Starting in 2001, Powell River pays for studies and consults the public to develop a new sewage plan. The Waste Transfer site is the location the public and City committees recommend for a new consolidated treatment plant.
2005
Council adopts Powell River’s Stage 2 Liquid Waste Management Report that identifies the Waste Transfer site as the location for a consolidated public waste treatment plant.
2006
MOE approves Powell River’s plan for a public waste treatment plant at the Waste Transfer site.
2008
Catalyst asks City Council for a contract to treat city sewage at its sewage treatment plant. Raising concerns over possible mill closure, labour stoppages and other issues, the City Engineer Don MacKinnon describes joint treatment “as a $15- to $20-million gamble on the future of Catalyst.”
2010
April – City Council signs an Agreement in Principle with Catalyst for a 20 year joint treatment deal as one part of Powell River’s “plan to reduce the property tax rate for major industry.”
May – A study experimenting with treating combined City and Catalyst liquid waste finds that the effluent produced would not comply with Catalyst’s permit. This negative result is dismissed as merely a problem with the test method.
August – Catalyst’s lawyers inform the City that the mill’s plant would not be available for city use after a mill closure.
October – Consulting engineers issue draft report on joint treatment. The report advises: “The City should be prepared for the Mill closure on short notice. The City will also need assurance that the necessary funds are available on short notice.”
2011
January – City applies for $7.27 million for joint treatment from the federal-provincial Innovations Fund. The application states that “The Joint Treatment option was selected in consultation with stakeholders…” In fact no public consultation meetings had been held and the Liquid Waste Joint Advisory Committee had not made any recommendation on the preferred option.
February – City announces it will hold its first public consultation meetings on joint treatment versus the public options.
May – The City decides to drop any risk factor to account for mill closure from the cost estimates it presents to the public.
May – The City holds a public Open House and dialogue meeting on sewage option
May – The report on the public consultation is published. It concludes: “The input from the community through the Open House and Word Cafe processes overwhelmingly support some form of consolidated plant facility for Powell River. A joint treatment option was rejected on all levels.”
May – The Advisory Committee votes 10 to 1 in favour of a publicly owned and operated treatment facility. The dissenting vote is cast by the mill’s representative on the committee, the person who originally proposed joint treatment.
June – City Council votes to reject the recommendation of the Advisory Committee for a public facility. It also rejects a motion to approve joint treatment.
On June 27, Council approves a third option labelled “Phased Consolidation”. The two phases of this option are first to enter into a joint treatment contract with the mill for 10 years using money from the Innovations Fund, and then for the City to build its own plant with 2/3 funding from senior governments.
Some of the conditions placed on Council approval of “Phased Consolidation” are:
- To get tests that show joint treatment can produce the quality of effluent required, since the first test failed to get an acceptable result.
- To find out whether disinfection is required for the safety of mill workers before city sewage is sent to the mill. Disinfection would make joint treatment prohibitively expensive.
- To acquire land required for pre-treatment.
The Phased Consolidation Option was never presented to the public in the consultation process, despite Section 27 (1) of the Environmental Management Act. This Section states that municipalities “shall provide a process for comprehensive review and consultation with the public respecting all aspects of the development, amendment and final content of a waste management plan . . . “
Estimates are published showing capital costs of the Phased Consolidation Option would be more than if the City just built its own public plant from the beginning. $1.74 million in capital costs would be spent on pipelines connecting City sewers to the mill, an asset that would become worthless under the Phased Consolidation Option when the City builds its own plant. This capital expenditure on infrastructure that will be abandoned amounts to 24% of the money the City has applied for from the Innovations Fund.
