(Septic) Field or Communication Failure?!?

A colleague with extensive experience constructing wastewater treatment facilities says they are 10% technology and 90% politics. The intense desire to DO SOMETHING about water quality may push... sewerification onward.... and that SOMETHING may turn out to be an expensive education in the way NOT to take care of areas where septic tanks work fine with a little care.
Art Ludwig

More Uninformed Statements Made About Lantzville and SewersMr. Scott continued by noting that sewer was needed, commented that Parksville/Qualicum Beach had a referendum that failed. The Province then mandated sewer. Jan. 22/07 Council Minutes
Dave Scott, former Trustee/Councillor; if he's talking about Barclay Cres. (French Creek) then here is the real story, see http://www.rdn.bc.ca/cms/wpattachments/wpID1310atID1458.pdf
Mr Blood continued by noting that without sewers property owners would be looking at tens of thousands of dollars for septic remediation. Feb. 12/07 Council Minutes
Brian Blood, Chair - Lantzville Log Society/Log Council 'reporter'. I show you the sources of my numbers, where did he get his information from?

This was a virtual environmental crisis. It wasn't a pretty sight in the winter in the city (sic) of Lantzville to see that the water would actually leech out — the rainwater, and we had lots this year — of the sewer systems and drain into the open ditches. It was a horrible health hazard, and now that's being addressed.
Ron Cantelon, Nanaimo-Parksville MLA/former Nanaimo councillor/former realtor
Feb. 17/07 Hansard; http://http://www.roncantelonmla.bc.ca/

In his 'Colin's Comments', dated August 17, 2005, Mayor Haime writes "(f)or sewage treatment there are definitely systems out there that can handle 150 units of seniors housing."

In his paid advertisement in the first edition of the 'new' Lantzville Log, Councillor Brian Dempsey writes "(w)ithout sewers, we cannot build seniors' housing or anything else." In his second election flyer, distributed about Nov. 15th, Councillor Dempsey also writes, "New lots cannot be created smaller than 2.5 acres unless the lots are on community sewer. This puts the municipality in a position of not being able to meet the housing needs for seniors or anyone else."
So, are Lantzville residents clear on that then or does there seem to be just a wee bit of confusion amongst some members of Council as to what is or is not possible with respect to seniors' housing? Seems to me if a 250 student private school (Aspengrove) can be built using a sewage treatment plant and in-ground distribution field, so could limited seniors' housing (say, 35 units, subject to suitable soils). The decision to require BOTH community water and sewers to subdivide below 1 ha (2.47 acres) is one made by Lantzville council through the Official Community Plan (OCP), NOT
the Ministry of Health (Vancouver Island Health Authority - VIHA)! If you still have doubts, go have a look at the Timberstone Estates development on Northwest Bay Road in Nanoose Bay (1/2 acre lots on community water and septic tanks).

I have always found it curious that we are told we need to bring in sewers so we can have senior's housing so that those who love this community can continue to live here yet, in doing so, we not only change the community so drastically that many of them won't want to live here anymore but we drive others (families) away, as well.

Councillor, Douglas K. Parkhurst, in his second election campaign flyer (received Nov. 17/05), on the second page under 'Truth' writes that "CMHC estimates the cost of a Septic system can vary between $12,000 to over $20,000." What we should be talking about here is the repair of a septic system, not installing a brand new one, and I am still at a loss as to why our elected representatives keep throwing out so many different numbers when there is significant local data available (at least 60 local systems have been repaired over the past 10 years or so and we could always ask 'local son', Danny Negrin, who has done a lot of these types of repairs - why should his experience only be used to support the implementation of sewers?). A Lantzville resident has spoken at length to three area contractors and found that the 'typical' range for septic field repair was $3,000 - 7,000 [2005$], replacement of an entire system being more. In his report titled, "Repair Options for Failed Onsite Sewage Systems", Erwin Dyck, Land Use Consultant, VIHA, provides a range of costs of $5,000 to $14,000 for the complete replacement of a system, with costs possibly going as high as $35,000 for the very rare case. CMHC is a national entity so, even if the numbers were for the repair of septic systems, they likely wouldn't be particularly relevant to Lantzville. [UPDATE 08 02 25] Councillor Dempsey, at their regular council meeting, took the opportunity to add his 'two cents worth' and was more than happy to inform council that a new home in Lantzville has recently "spent approximately $22,000 for a new pressurized septic system which shows how good a deal residents received with the sewer system." If this cost is, in fact, real then it may be that that particular homeowner in those particular circumstances would have been financially better off to have had access to a sewer system. However, that does NOT mean that all, current Lantzville homeowners would be in the same situation (e.g., the resident who spent approx. $3000 to redo his gravity system) or that they would want the added density that always comes with sewers. I still find it astonishing that Lantzville council continues to 'cherry pick' septic/sewer costs in their justification for sewers - if they were being honest with residents, they would quote a range and an average and then let homeowners determine which number to use in their personal deliberations.

Councillor Parkhurst has also recently been overheard musing about how the Ministry of Health will 'shut us down' if we don't solve our 'septic problem'. Many of you will remember that this is the same threat that was trotted out almost 10 years ago during the last 'need for sewers' era of Lantzville Projects. It has always puzzled me that the Ministry of Health would apparently rather use their powers to force us onto sewers (I don't know of a single place where this has happened - on the contrary, they have/are being sued for allowing municipal treatment plants to exceed permit levels, in some cases, for years) than to help us find and solve those problems that we do have. They do seem to prefer to spend their time writing letters in support of sewers.
Members of Council apparently wouldn't know a fecal coliform if it jumped up and bit them in the butt and they seem blissfully unaware that it is not the coliforms that typically cause problems, they are only an indicator of the likely presence of other, possibly harmful bacteria (salmonella, streptococci, typhus and cholera). However, the relationship between what we observe (fecal coliforms) and what else may be present (the above-mentioned pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa) is not by any means fixed, and can vary by a factor of 10 or even 100. They also seem impervious to the fact that all warm-blooded animals produce fecal coliforms, including dogs (23 million per gm of wet feces), cats (7.9 million), deer, seagulls (368 million), cattle (.25 million), horses and humans (13 million). Based on a set of assumptions, I have calculated that, in a single day, the dogs not picked up after in Lantzville would contribute in the order of 987,000,000,000 fecal coliforms to our local environment. While some additional sampling has been done to try and infer the source of the fecal coliform in some of our ditches, the best the latest EBA engineering report could do was to 'suggest' that they come from human sources. Koers & Associates, the District's sewer engineers, offered in their report that "failing septic fields are likely (emphasis is mine) contaminating local area ditches and the waterfront."

To give you some kind of idea of the 'science' behind this report (which, based on the coliform data attached appears to have been written in '92 or early '93) their prediction of "hundreds of failing sewage disposal systems before the year 2000" appears to have come up woefully short (their own data indicates 60 repaired systems from approx. 1996 - 2005).

To add yet another perspective, Environment Canada reports that the 3 main causes of beach closures in Lantzville are, in order of their significance, surface run-off, rural run-off and then failed septic fields. The difficulty is that we don't know how much of the 'problem' can be attributed to each of these but we do know that only the failed septic fields will be helped by collector sewers. I informed Council of my findings at their Sept. 26/05 meeting so they have certainly had enough time to do the necessary testing to determine how much of the problem is from septic systems. The only document I have seen, which purports to definitively link the fecal coliform samples to failed septic systems, is a three-page unsigned and undated 'report' which the Ministry of Health, whose letterhead it is written under, has been unable to determine the source of.

So, based on this tenuous connection between coliform in some ditches and, on average, 7 reported failures/yr., we're marching 'full steam ahead' to sewerize most of Lantzville at an up-front cost of thousands of dollars to each household with annual operating costs in the hundreds of dollars and development pressure that just won't quit!?

Be under no delusions about it - in the absence of solid proof of the relative contribution of failing/failed septic systems, this becomes about supplying infrastructure to allow major development while having the taxpayers (Lantzville, provincial and federal - hey, we're those too!) pick up the brunt of the cost. Consider for a moment Lantville Projects previous development proposals for their Ware Road property:

1996: 356 housing units + 75,000 sq. ft. commercial; $1.2 million [1996$] sewer line, no 'latecomers' fees (charges for us to connect to 'their' pipe)
1997: 329 housing units + 77,000 sq. ft. commercial; $1.2 million [1996$] sewer line, no 'latecomers' fees
1997: 206 housing units + 2 acres of land set aside for commercial; $1.2 million [1996$] sewer line, 'latecomer's' fees
2005: OCP - 400 housing units + ???? sq. ft. commercial; $250,000, no 'latecomers' fees and no sewer DCC's
Therefore, if I were one of their investors, I would be doing a serious ‘happy’ dance!
Lastly, with regard to MLA Cantelon's statement to the Legislature, if such a thing were actually occurring, wouldn't any rational person expect that their provincial government, through the Ministry of Health and the powers given to them, would require an immediate investigation and remedy?

But, for heaven's sake, don't take my (or their) word for it, do your own investigating - talk to neighbours who have had repairs, search the internet, etc. A good place to start would be http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/E/199904565.html and http://lakes.chebucto.org/H-2/bst.html. It really is in your own best interest!