I have two points that I would like to make:
1. McLoughin Point has always been the optimum location for one sewage treatment plant. This observance after nine years of CRD study, which the Township of Esquimalt has been a part of at the CRD board table.
2. What was missing from the process is, what happens if a municipal council rejects the decision made by the CRD board?
For just this reason, the Greater Vancouver Regional District applied for and was granted from the B.C. government special powers whereby the GVRD board can make a decision “for the good of the region,” and on that basis whatever municipality is affected has to abide by the decision.
If the CRD board had applied for similar powers, Esquimalt would never have been allowed to tell the other six affected municipalities basically, “no thanks build it somewhere else,” which stalled this project and forced the board to put the brakes on and start again.
The provincial minister of environment also did the taxpayers of the Capital Region a disservice by telling the CRD to come up with a solution, instead of telling Esquimalt to abide by the decision of the board.
When representatives of the region’s municipalities sit around the CRD board and committee tables, they have a responsibility to think regionally. Not so Esquimalt; even going so far as to turn down the “perks” offered up by the CRD in the form of new amenities, or best of all, Esquimalt citizens not having to pay their fair share of the cost of the treatment plant.
One more thing, please, I am so sick and tired of the Mr. Floatie (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) character. We are so far past that, surely, and we won’t be laughing at all when faced with our tax bills for this huge fiasco.
Elizabeth Sheridan
Saanich