Options presented for splitting expenses

Taxpayers are a little closer to knowing how hard of a hit their wallets will take to treat Greater Victoria’s sewage.

Capital Region politicians on the core area liquid waste management committee must pick from four ways the five participating communities could split the bill to build and operate the system.

In all but one of the proposed models, taxpayers in the City of Victoria would be hit the hardest.

At issue is how to divide the estimated $715-million cost of building facilities for the five core area municipalities, as well as the estimated $15 million needed to run them each year. A plant on the West Shore is expected to cost around $200 million, a burden to be shared by Colwood and Langford taxpayers, as the two municipalities move toward operating their own sewer service.

Three models base the split on either annual average water flows or flows during dry weather only.

In all of those scenarios, Victoria and Oak Bay, with their aging leak-prone pipes, fare poorly.

If annual flows were used as the basis, Oak Bay residents would face an average annual bill of $131 per capita. That’s followed by a $113 bill for Victoria residents, compared to a low of $54 in View Royal, where sewage infrastructure is newer.

Alternatively, splitting the costs based on the system’s design capacity would shift the burden from Oak Bay, where the population isn’t growing, to View Royal, which is projected to grow rapidly in coming decades.

A decision won’t be made until the new year, after CRD staff present workshops on the issue with municipal staff and politicians.

An answer on the matter isn’t required as part of the CRD’s business plan -- due to the province by Dec. 31 – said environmental services manager Dwayne Kalynchuk. The province has said a treatment system must be in place by 2016.

Host with benefits

• As they consider how to split the costs of treating Greater Victoria’s sewage, politicians also have to decide how to share its benefits.

Resource recovery is expected to generate $3.6 million toward the system’s $15-million in operating costs. A CRD staff report anticipates using revenues to evenly reduce levies to all five participating municipalities – but Esquimalt’s mayor has other ideas.

“We all see the difficulty of having a treatment site in our municipality and there has to be a benefit to those residents,” said Barb Desjardins.

Current plans call for a liquid waste treatment plant at McLoughlin Point. However, Esquimalt council wants the CRD to look at locating a combined liquid waste/biosolids treatment facility in the City of Victoria.

kvass@vicnews.com