One more lingering question can be crossed off the sewage checklist. After months of wondering, Victorians know where the new sludge pipeline will run.
As questions go, it鈥檚 not up there with 鈥淲hat is the meaning of life?鈥� But for residents who want to know if they鈥檒l be dodging backhoes and jackhammers on their daily commute, it鈥檚 a question that matters.
This week, Seaterra, the Capital Regional District鈥檚 sewage program, announced the precise route of the 18.5-kilometre pipeline that will carry sludge from the McLoughlin Point treatment plant to whatever fate awaits it at the Hartland landfill. It鈥檚 true that Seaterra and the CRD haven鈥檛 decided what they will do with the sludge, but sewage watchers trust they will figure it out before the stuff starts flowing.
In the meantime, residents of streets including Dominion Road, Selkirk Avenue, Bodega Road and Ker Avenue know they will be hosting construction crews at some point between 2015 and 2017. And everyone who doesn鈥檛 live or drive on the roads marked on Seaterra鈥檚 finely detailed map can breathe a sigh of relief.
There is a measure of relief also for those who live along the route. The pipe, Seaterra says, will be buried under roads or within road allowances, so nobody has to worry about the backyard being dug up.
Project managers have assured residents that roads will remain open to local traffic, so disruption for homeowners will be kept to a minimum. Staff will talk to municipalities about the best hours to work.
The project will bury an 20-centimetre diameter pipe to carry sludge, which is 98 per cent water, from McLoughlin Point to Hartland at a depth of one metre. A 25- to 30-centimetre return pipe will go in the same trench from Hartland along Interurban Road as far as the intersection with Grange Road, where it will dump leftover water into the sewer system at the Marigold pumping station.
Crews will complete 50 to 100 metres of high-density polyethylene pipe per day, welding the sections together. The pipe will hang under bridges and will be tunnelled under the Trans-sa国际传媒 Highway to avoid turning the Colwood Crawl into a parking lot.
At four points along the route, underground pumping stations will propel the sludge up the grade, which rises 150 metres from the treatment plant to Hartland. The only visible sign of the stations will be small 鈥渒iosks鈥� for control equipment, backup generators and odour control.
With the route laid out, the next steps are an environmental assessment of the pipeline and information sessions for communities affected by the line.
After what seems like years of snail-like progress, the announcement of the route is a sign that the $783-million sewage project is generating something visible besides public hearings and newspaper headlines. While opponents of treatment wage battle for the hearts and minds of taxpayers, all they have been able to do is delay something that the federal and provincial governments have declared to be inevitable.
For those who support the project or are indifferent 鈥� likely the majority 鈥� any movement that gets the region closer to finishing this massive undertaking is a good thing. Any delay costs taxpayers more money for a project that will be two months behind schedule if Esquimalt approves a rezoning proposal for McLoughlin Point on April 7 鈥� and even further behind if Esquimalt rejects it.
The route is one of many steps on the road to completion. Residents know how the sludge will get from the treatment plant to Hartland. Now the experts just have to figure out what to do with it once it gets there.
