The May 28, 2014, issue of the Sooke News Mirror carries notice of an application by Landus Development Group Inc. to the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Operations (MFLNRO) for a Licence-Utility at Possession Point, just outside Sooke Harbour. This is part of the Sooke Point Development which is in the District of Sooke. The Ministry’s website (http://arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/index.jsp) has details of this application (file No. 1414241) which reveal it is for a 200-metre utility/sewage/effluent outfall into Juan de Fuca Strait. The website also shows the location of a “wastewater treatment plant” but gives no details of what is included in “wastewater” nor the level of treatment to be provided, whether primary, secondary or tertiary. The website also provides opportunity for comments, but only until June 7, 2014.
Possession Point and nearby Donaldson (Secretary) Island are the premier salmon fishing spots in the Sooke area and the nearby Sooke Flats are an excellent crabbing area heavily used by commercial and recreational fishers, as is Sooke Harbour.
The tidal currents into Sooke Harbour bring all kinds of “gifts,” including dead sea mammals and all sorts of man-made garbage. Sooke Point development sewage could do the same. The potential for pollution of all these areas is just too high and unacceptable.
It is incredible that while CRD is spending millions struggling to decide where and how to build an $800 million government-mandated treatment system for Greater Victoria’s sewage, here we have a private developer applying to the same government to discharge sewage on Sooke’s doorstep.
Treatment of waste/sewage water for this development should be built on land in a properly constructed and operating septic disposal field at the treatment plant. No discharge of effluent in the ocean environment should be allowed. The developer and the Ministry responsible should take a page from Victoria’s Dockside Green treatment system which is recognized as green and non-polluting.
V.A. Preto
East Sooke
