FAQ’s on Powell River’s Plan to Have Catalyst Take Over Sewage Treatment
The answers to the following questions come from City documents, transcripts of City meetings, and interviews with government officials. Wherever possible, a link has been provided so the original source of the information can be checked.
What is City Council’s “cotreatment” proposal?
“Cotreatment” would mean the City would pay Catalyst to treat city sewage in the mill’s treatment plant and get rid of its own municipal sewage treatment plants.
Why does Council want to hand over treatment of city sewage to Catalyst?
According to the City, cotreatment is intended to reduce Catalyst’s taxes.
In the City’s Agreement in Principle with Catalyst, cotreatment is described as part of the “plan to reduce the property tax rate for major industry.”(1)
The $750,000 figure came out of talks the City had with Catalyst in 2010 about the additional reductions Catalyst wanted in its taxes.(2)
What would Powell River have to pay Catalyst under a cotreatment deal?
The City would pay at least $750,000 to Catalyst each year, and more if Catalyst’s taxes ever went up.(3) The $750,000 payment each year would be in addition to what the City would still have to pay to maintain a municipal pretreatment plant, sewer lines, and pump stations.
Cotreatment would also require the City to pay Catalyst for the mill’s abandoned clarifier and land for a pretreatment plant. The City has not included these expenses in its estimates of how much cotreatment would cost.(4)
What would Catalyst’s costs be?
The City is not expecting Catalyst to help pay for cotreatment. According to the City’s October 2010 Business Plan, “The City would not expect the mill to invest the capital that is required to create this dual use of services…”(5)
According to the City’s five year budget, the City has already paid Catalyst $20,000 to do work in preparation for co-treatment.(6)
Catalyst may even get advantages by burning the solids left after treating the city’s waste. The $750,000 fee the City would pay Catalyst appear to be 100% profit for the mill.
What happens if the mill closes?
The City would have to build its own new treatment plant in a very short time because it will have got rid of its existing plants. The backup plan for when the mill closes is to transform the mill’s old clarifier into a sewage treatment plant.(7)
Couldn’t the City just take over the mill’s treatment plant if the mill closed?
At an August 24, 2010 meeting, City Councillors and Catalyst executives discussed the possibility of the City taking over the mill’s treatment plant if the mill shut down permanently. But Catalyst’s lawyers opposed this idea and it has been dropped in favour of adapting the mill’s old clarifier if the mill shuts down.(8)
How does cotreatment impact the choice of a location of sewage treatment in Powell River?
Choosing cotreatment means choosing to locate Powell River’s sewage treatment permanently very close to homes at the site of the mill’s abandoned clarifier in the Townsite. That’s where the City’s “pretreatment” plant is going to be built if cotreatment goes ahead. The City also plans to store raw sewage in the mill’s old clarifier when the mill temporarily shuts down. (9)
In addition, under cotreatment the City’s backup plan for when the mill shuts down is to build a treatment plant in the mill’s old clarifier.(10)
How did the City calculate the risk in having Catalyst take over sewage treatment?
A very low figure - 15% – has been calculated as the risk of the mill shutting down. This figure was based on Catalyst’s own opinion of how likely it is that the mill will close. Catalyst is claiming there is a zero possibility the mill might close over the next five years, and a 70% chance that it will still be open 20 years from now. City Councillors have chosen not to get an independent assessment of the risk of the mill closing. Councillors have also assumed they will be given enough notice to build a new sewage treatment plan if the mill does close. (11)
What would the City have to do under cotreatment, in addition to paying Catalyst for sewage treatment?
Although the mill would be paid to treat city sewage at the end of the process, the City would still be taking on the following responsibilities (12):
a) Construct a new pretreatment plant. The City would still be responsible for “pretreating” its sewage before it was sent to the mill. The City would also be responsible for maintaining this plant as well as the municipal pump stations and sewer lines required to get sewage to the mill.
b) Construct new sewer lines to take all of the city’s sewage to the mill.
Three possible routes for the new sewer line from Westview to Townsite are part of the cotreatment plan. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has concerns about the option of taking a line along the ocean.(13) Estimates for the option of a route up Marine Avenue make it appear too expensive. (14) The third option, construction of a sewer line along Willingdon Beach Trail, seems the most likely to be adopted. But the Willingdon Beach Trail option would require shutting the trail during construction and removing trees.(15)
c) Retrofit the mill’s abandoned “clarifier”. The City plans to use this huge concrete pond to store raw sewage when the mill shuts down temporarily and to treat city sewage when the mill shuts down permanently. The mill formerly used the clarifier for its own sewage, but abandoned it because of persistent odour problems. Catalyst is already dividing off the clarifier property to sell it to the City as part of the cotreatment plan and the City is in negotiations to buy it. (16)
Where will the money come from to pay for the municipal infrastructure needed for cotreatment?
According to the City’s business plan, Powell River expects the provincial and federal governments to pay for the required infrastructure. Powell River has applied to the Innovations Fund for this money. However, the Innovations Fund is supposed to fund projects that are models of environmentally beneficial innovation, not ones developed with the intent of giving tax cuts to particular companies.(17)
Powell River could have applied for provincial funding for environmentally innovative projects instead of applying for money for cotreatment.(18) No environmentally innovative options have been considered by the City.
What are the odour problems the cotreatment proposal would create?
The abandoned clarifier the City plans to buy from Catalyst would act as an open air tank for storing raw sewage when the mill temporarily shuts down. City Council is supposedly “comfortable” with the idea of storing raw sewage in the clarifier.(19)
The City’s consulting engineer Al Gibb said he was never asked for a plan to cover the clarifier, although he said that an open-air structure would produce more odours than a closed one. Gibb was asked by the advisory committee at their November 8, 2010 meeting if the clarifier would cause more odour problems than the Westview treatment plant. Gibb responded: “Well, the Westview treatment plant is enclosed. A treatment plant that is not enclosed in general terms would be more problematic in terms of odour. So if you enclose it, it’s going to cost extra money, but then you cut down on your odours.” He added that “We haven’t been asked about covering the clarifier.”
The committee on Powell River’s liquid waste plan asked for “best practices” on odour control for any sewage option the City chose, but Gibb has said that it would only be “best practices” in terms of what the City could afford. (20)
What are the financial risks from cotreatment?
Although it signed an Agreement in Principle in April 2010 to pursue cotreatment, City Council does not know what it would cost because it does not know how much it would have to pay Catalyst to buy the mill’s clarifier and land for a pretreatment plant.
The total cost of cotreatment – when considering the cost of the land, upgrades, fees, backup plan, and other expenses – could be higher than the cost of a public system constructed on land the City owns. If the City gets all the provincial Innovation Funds money it is counting on, some of the capital spending could be less under cotreatment. But City Councillors could have applied to this fund for a public alternative, but chose to apply only for funds for cotreatment.
Since the City has reduced and capped Catalyst’s taxes, any additional operating costs resulting from cotreatment will mean an increase in residential taxes. Jobs will be lost, since city jobs will be eliminated and Catalyst jobs will not be created to implement co-treatment.
The City’s annual payment to Catalyst would give it no say in the operation of the mill’s treatment plant but it could have financial and legal liability when things go wrong. These annual payments would give the City no rights to use the mill’s treatment plant if the mill closed.
The City would face serious problems if it has underestimated the risk of the mill closing. Having got rid of its own sewage treatment facilities, Powell River could have to build a new treatment plant without adequate time to finance and plan this new plant.
Handing over a vital public service like sewage treatment to a private company has created a lot of problems for other cities. When Hamilton privatized its sewage treatment, the company put constant pressure on the city to renegotiate the contract to the company’s advantage. The contract changed repeatedly when the companies doing the sewage treatment went bankrupt or were bought out. In 2004, Hamilton decided it had had enough with this privatization experiment and made the system public again.(21)
What are the risks to the environment from cotreatment?
Having Catalyst treat Powell River sewage would mean only the industrial standard for pollutants had to be met rather than the higher, municipal standard.(22) As well, the plan for cotreatment says dumping raw sewage into the ocean would be an option to deal with the periods when the mill is completely shut down for maintenance. (23)
Does cotreatment fit with the City’s Sustainability Charter?
The City’s cotreatment proposal conflicts with its own Sustainability Charter [http://www.powellriverrd.bc.ca/misc/SustainabilityCharterFINAL.pdf] in a number of ways.
For example, this Charter commits the City to “recognize ecological limits” and “create efficient strategies that meet environmental, social, and economic goals at the same time.”(Principle 5) However, cotreatment would lower environmental standards for Powell River sewage treatment. The City’s Westview plant was built to achieve a high standard – tertiary treatment – but all of the City’s current proposals including cotreatment would go back to a lower standard.
The Sustainability Charter also commits City Council to “exercise caution: when in doubt about the impacts of a project or initiative, we will take action to safeguard the environment and society.” (Principle 9) Council though gave its commitment to work for cotreatment under the April 2010 Agreement in Principle, before the environmental or financial impacts of cotreatment were evaluated.
Is there a rush to come up with a new sewage treatment system for Powell River?
Powell River does need to improve its sewage system in the coming years. The Westview plant, although it has a very high standard for treatment, at times has to allow sewage to bypass the plant and does not comply with its permit. This is because the flows going into the plant were not accurately calculated when it was designed and a planned pretreatment plant was never built.(24)
Powell River, though, is not under pressure from the provincial government to come up with a new system immediately.(25)
The lesson from the problems with the current sewage system is that taking the time to come up with the best option for a new system is critical to avoid negative impacts on both City finances and the environment.
Is the City following provincial guidelines for public consultation on liquid waste management plans? [BC Ministry of Environment, “Guidelines for Developing a Liquid Waste Management Plan”, http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/mpp/gfdalwmp.html]
No.
The City has violated the guidelines in a number of ways, such as:
a) No public consultation from the beginning of the process. The guidelines require this, but City Council signed the Agreement in Principle with Catalyst that included cotreatment without any consultation with the public.
b) No meaningful public consultation. The City applied for provincial funding for the cotreatment option in January 2011 before it public consultations have been held and before it has heard from the Liquid Waste Management Joint Advisory Committee on which option was best for the city. City Council has already included payments for cotreatment in its five year budget.
3. Only one advisory committee. Under provincial guidelines, Powell River was supposed to establish “at least” two advisory committees but Powell River only set up one.
4. City refusal to appoint representatives from environmental, school board, and other groups. The provincial guidelines require that advisory committees include representatives from environmental groups and other organizations. None of these groups are represented on the advisory committee and the City has refused to appoint these representatives even when openings came up.
5. No development of realistic options. The engineering consultant’s report on options includes the site of the existing sewage plant in Townsite. However, the owners of this land have told the City it is not available for sale.
Didn’t Powell River already go through an extensive public process to develop a liquid waste management plan?
Between 2001 and 2005, Powell River went through a liquid waste management plan process that ended with the selection of the Waste Transfer site as the preferred option for Powell River’s consolidated waste treatment plant. The 2005 Liquid Waste Management Report states “The site identified for the consolidated facility is the Waste Transfer Site.” (26)
One of the reasons why City Councillors have said they oppose the Waste Transfer site is an opinion volunteered by the City’s engineering consultant who argued choosing the Waste Transfer site for a sewage plant would create odour problems for the campground.(27) However, the Waste Transfer site is 206 metres from the campground and 394 metres from the nearest homes. The primary clarifier that the City is planning to buy from Catalyst as part of cotreatment is just 93 meters from nearby homes.
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1. “Agreement in Principle”, April 2010. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1103 2. City CAO Stan Westby’s response to a question from Water Watch at the Liquid Waste Management Steering Committee Meeting, June 28, 2010. 3. “Agreement in Principle”, April 2010. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1103 4. Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Powell River – Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010, p. 17. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417 5. Powell River Business Plan, October 2010. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1339 6. Powell River, Draft Five Year Capital Budget Summary – Feb. 2011. 7. Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010, p. 17. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417 8. Liquid Waste Management Joint Advisory Committee Meeting, August 25, 2010. 9. Townsite Ratepayers’ meeting with Richard Stogre, Powell River Manager of Engineering Services, February 9, 2011. 10. Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010, p. 17. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417. 11. Steering Committee Meeting, February 3, 2011. 12. Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417. 13. Water Watch discussions with Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ officials. 14. Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010, p.32 http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417 15. [Water Watch discussions with City officials.] 16. [Townsite Ratepayers’ meeting with Richard Stogre, Powell River Manager of Engineering Services, February 9, 2011.] 17. [Union of BC Municipalities, “Application Form Capital Projects – Innovations Fund”, http://www.ubcm.ca/assets/Funding~Programs/Documents/Capital%20Application%20Form%202010.doc] 18. [Water Watch meeting with senior officials from the Ministry of Community, Sport, and Cultural Development, Feb. 14, 20100.] 19. [Townsite Ratepayers’ meeting with Richard Stogre, Powell River Manager of Engineering Services, February 9, 2011.] 20. [Joint Advisory Committee Meeting, Jan. 19, 2011.] 21. [Bob Carty, “Hard Water: The uphill campaign to privatize Canada's waterworks”, http://www.probeinternational.org/envirowaterarticles/HardWater.pdf] 22. [Water Watch discussions with Ministry of Environment officials] 23. [Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers, “Liquid Waste Management Plan”, October 2010, p.17. http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1417] 24. [Water Watch discussions with City officials.] 25. [Water Watch discussions with Ministry of Environment officials.] 26. [Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers “Liquid Waste Management Plan – Stage 2”, August 2005, p. ES-4, http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=337] 27. For the content of the Dayton and Knight letter, see the letters attached to the Steering Committee agenda, Jan. 6, 2011, http://powellriver.fileprosite.com/Documents/DocumentList.aspx?ID=1486
