Colwood backs West Shore sewage plan

The idea of a sewage-treatment plant for the West Shore is gaining fresh steam.

Colwood council voted unanimously that the presentation of a treatment plant to serve Colwood and Langford should be made to the Capital Regional District’s sewage-treatment project board.

It also committed to select a site and host it.

“Colwood has always wanted a solution that was reasonable, cost-effective and doesn’t break the banks of taxpayers,” Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton said.

Aqua-Tex Scientific Consulting has a plan based on a decentralized wastewater and water-reuse concept that would pump treated water into the ground. In the case of an emergency, it would use existing infrastructure to send treated wastewater to Macaulay Point.

The plan aims to avoid building an ocean outfall in Colwood.

The plant would cost West Shore residents $58 million, down from the $204 million that Urban Systems estimated for a westside plant for the CRD. Colwood would contribute $14.5 million and Langford would contribute $43.5 million. It would cost Colwood taxpayers $34 a year and Langford taxpayers $50 a year, according to the presentation.

The presentation is an updated version of work that began in 2012, Hamilton said.

Colwood has already put forward several sites that could host a westside facility, which were vetted by council and assessed for suitability by consultants in the last round of this process.

“When you take the capacity that Colwood and Langford have out of the mix of a centralized [treatment plant] downtown, that gives the downtown and the project board a lot more options,” Hamilton said.

Langford Mayor Stew Young said he wants to see a treatment plant in the West Shore, to support its ballooning population.

He said he would endorse such a plan if Colwood committed to a site — but he was skeptical of a proposal that didn’t feature an ocean outfall.

“We rain a lot here. So to sit here and say you’re going to take all the sewage from Langford and Colwood and guarantee that, without a backup option, you’re not going to get your funding,” Young said.

He also said saving taxpayers money is his top priority.

“I’m not going to let this die until we find the cheapest way to deal with this,” he said.