Showing posts with label update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label update. Show all posts

Monday, 11 May 2015

RITE Planners Update #6 - Monday May 11, 2015


Introduction

Previous updates can be found here http://theriteplan.blogspot.com/

A lot is happening on the sewage issue:  … a vendor says the whole region can be serviced for $250 million; the upcoming CALWMC meeting has a packed agenda;  business owners are calling for change;  RITE planners are asking for consideration of distributed tertiary treatment with gasification; public events held in Saanich and Oak Bay;  roundtable on siting sewage treatment was held in Esquimalt; TCAC is being recalled; Mayor of Langford wants Seaterra to stop.   Wow.  We hope you enjoy getting all this wrapped up in our weekly update!

Next update we’ll talk about language.  The choice of words people use determines the outcomes.  For example, the word “biosolids” implies anaerobic digestion.  Disposal of “treated effluent” implies polluted secondary treatment.  We need (a) neutral words for the times no system is preferred and (b) a chart showing the “words” and how they relate to treatment solution.  For the time being, stay away from the the word “biosolids” unless you mean it. Use “residuals”.  Also avoid “treated effluent” unless you also include “reclaimed water”.

Tertiary Distributed with Gasification


This is the new way to describe the RITE plan in three simple words. It sums up all the other objectives into a nice package.  Our current goals include: seeing a space for true experts in gasification to come and educate us.

Pivotal IRM & Biowater Technology

On the last Westside Innovation Day, Pivotal IRM and Biowater Technology presented a complete sewage treatment and sludge management system for the Region.

For the whole region Pivotal/Biowater says it about $250M vs CRD Plan costing $782M.  This $250M includes land acquisition, trucks, buildings, redundant systems, training, uniforms, etc, etc, etc,.  A very detailed analysis.
The proposal uses the existing pipe infrastructure and includes costs for local connections to the new facilities.

In summary, it can be structured to be a profitable business rather than a drain on taxpayers.  It can save taxpayers $ billions in operating costs and debt charges over the life of the facilities. The technology is proven and stable in several countries. New plants are coming on-line all the time. The plants are very small in size and can be put where you want them to maximize use of existing infrastructure and resource recovery. The systems would be future proof because it exceeds all the performance requirements and standards and can be easily expanded when needed.   For more details  see our blog posting


Interview on Ian Jessop show

See our blog posting and listen to the interview on CFAX to see how it is possible the total project cost could be just $250 to $450 million


CALWMC - May 13th - Agenda

The agenda is packed with items that are going to change everything.  There is a letter from business owners calling for Seaterra to be disbanded.  Plus there is a second letter from a business owner:

Also presented are the Terms of Reference (TOR) for technical help.  But they are just repeating the same call for biosolids expertise and there is no mention of gasification expertise.  This is could be $ 300 million mistake but we may see some changes before the TOR are adopted

There is a call from Mayor of Langford to stop collecting the sewage taxes.

An update on the leaking sewage pipes which creates additional up front costs that can be avoided if the leaks are fixed.

A notice of motion from Ben Isitt calling for a review of the actual flows; basically seeking clarity on who will pay what but RITE also hopes this will bring clarity to actual flows.   We think the actual flows are decreasing over time and will be decreased even further by fixing the leaky pipes.

A notice of motion from Carol Hamilton which has been on each meeting’s agenda for a while now. Each time the motion is deferred.  Is this because of past experiences of trying to get a motion onto the agenda and the idea is to keep it on the agenda for the time it is needed?

RITE planners observe that the agenda makes no mention of the significant cost savings and revenue / environmental potential with gasification.  This has to change and this technology needs due consideration and some input from actual gasification experts.

Westside Roundtable Events


Two events last week.   One on Siting and the other on Resource Recovery.   The first event was full and the second nearly full (beautiful Saturday).  Both events collected some amazing input from residents.  At both events the public’s message was clear that the old plan is not sufficient.  People want a better solution and they are willing to help.  They seek more technical information.

We will report more on this event later when the notes become available.

Eastside Dialog Events


Two events. One at Cedar Hill Rec Center (Saanich)  and the other at Windsor Pavilion (Oak Bay).  Both events happened on a beautiful Saturday and had small attendance. Good considering the limited amount of promotion that was feasible given the rush timeline allows.    If Saanich and Oak Bay don’t get some strong leadership they are going to lose out on the opportunities that will come to the host community.

We will report more on this event later when the notes become available.

Technical and Community Advisory Committee (TCAC)


The TCAC is meeting was today at noon (May 11, 2015).   In the past, this committee did little because they met after the decisions were made just to approve the decisions.  This time the meeting was progressive because they  are all working towards sewage treatment. Except now it is a debate between the old guard who think secondary treatment / biosolids is good enough and …. a better plan.



General

Household Costs For Sewage Treatment Vs. Typical Household Expenditures

Some thoughts on how the cost of sewage treatment fits into an average householder's finances and perhaps why the public has bought into the Seaterra plan without protest. The plan that is $2.2 billion.

http://theriteplan.blogspot.ca/2015/05/household-costs-for-sewage-treatment-vs.html

The tertiary treatment with solids gasification proposal by Pivotal IRM and Biowater Technology discussed above would result in much lower project costs and far less impact on household expenditures!

Victoria Salon - Straight Talk About Sewage

Debate topic:
“Be it resolved that whereas the marine waters off the coast are an ecosystem that naturally absorbs and treats the present deep ocean sewage discharge, there is no need to build additional land-based sewage treatment plants for Greater Victoria”.

Gibson Auditorium Young Building,
Room 216 Camosun College,
Lansdowne Campus
Tuesday, May 12th, 2015
7pm-8:30pm

About RITE

The “R.I.T.E. plan” is more of a concept then a "plan" and it stands for Respectful discussion and process leading to an Innovative and Taxpayer friendly sewage treatment that is Environmentally beneficial.
This update was written jointly by volunteers and may not reflect the opinion of all members of the RITE plan FB group.   
or contact us at theriteplan@gmail.com  or join our open Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/theriteplan/

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Monday, 4 May 2015

RITE Planners Update #5 - Monday May 4, 2015


Introduction

The R.I.T.E plan has been validated.
Last Wednesday, thanks to the leadership of Lisa Helps, the public and the CRD had a very Respectful discussion. That is the R we’ve been asking for.   Seems like this will continue too!
Last week, at the Westside Innovation presentations, we heard from a local vendor who confirmed the I, T, and E is feasible too!
Innovative water treatment that produces fully reusable water combined with locally manufactured gasification systems to handle the residuals; all done with redundancy; modularity and using existing pipes in the ground.
Taxpayer friendly because the capital costs are, as we've been saying for years, significantly lower than the Seaterra plan. PLUS we can make money each year.
Environmentally beneficial because the water is fully reusable and the toxins in the residual solids are completely destroyed leaving a biochar product with many uses.
RITE was right! For years some people have discounted our observations saying there were no hard numbers. Well now we've been vindicated.


Reset Trust With a Respectful Dialog

Last week’s public event at the Royal BC Museum was a success. Lisa Helps has welcomed the audience and outlined what has changed. She acknowledges that the past has been a collective failure but now we have a collective opportunity to succeed.  She set a tone that the audience clearly liked.  
After the event I had the privilege to listen to the professional facilitators who came to help.  They were excited and clearly thought the event was a success.  One facilitator said the people at his round table had a lot of tension. They were very distrustful and angry about the past. Yet they set those tensions aside to share information with fellow citizens.
Another memorable quote:  “It was a valuable evening and, for the first time ever, I did not leave angry and feeling completely disenfranchised.”

Compared to every other CRD sponsored sewage event these past years this event was a turning point.

One critical metric to watch for: will the collected information disappear into CRD offices? or will it come back to each and every public event?   I’ve been told the goal is to bring this information back each time so these conversations build on each other.  Transparency at work builds trust.


How is that possible? Sewage treatment for so cheap?
How is it possible the whole region’s sewage can be treated for, perhaps, $250 million?  That seems impossible considering the CRD/Seaterra plan was $782 million.

Well, it is not hard to explain.  Just break the project into Water, Conveyance, and Residuals.




Water Treatment
The Seaterra estimate to build the secondary waste water treatment facility is, $179 million.  The vendor’s estimate is $200 million, for tertiary distributed. Many vendors of wastewater systems are promoting systems that are smaller and more efficient.   For sake of discussion, let’s be conservative and increase the vendor’s estimate by 50% to $300 million.

Tertiary costs more than secondary. No question. But ….

Conveyance


Seaterra’s McLoughlin project was estimated to cost $365 million.  As noted above the secondary treatment is estimated at $179 Million.  That is $186 million in tunnels, outfalls and extra stuff that is NOT needed with distributed tertiary.  But, the Seaterra plan also includes big projects like pump stations and attenuation tanks.  Total cost for tunnels, ocean outfalls, attenuation tanks and pump stations: $272 million.

The vendor said none of this is needed if you do distributed tertiary.  No need for ocean outfalls, no need for over sizing the plant because the distributed facilities provide redundancy.  No need for attenuation tanks or pump stations because you treat the sewage where it is now. You use existing pipes.

Let’s be conservative and say the vendor is wrong and we need, ballpark, $50 million for a few new pipes or whatever.  (or to go towards what has been spent so far!)

References:
782 total - 330 Hartland - 180 McLoughlin wastewater only  = 272 extras.

Residuals: Bio-digestion vs. Gasification

Here is where we save a lot.  Seaterra’s plan spends $330 million to run a 18 km pipe from the ocean up to Hartland Landfill and back again. It uses anaerobic digestion to convert roughly half the residuals into methane gas (20x worse than CO2) and leaves the rest to be used “beneficially” up island (which means the residuals will be spread on land).

Contrast this with gasification: which is cheap.   Hamilton Ontario is building a gasifier to treat 170,000 tonnes of municipal waste and sewage sludge for $37 million.  The vendor, Pivotal IRM, says they can do all this region for $50 million;  we’ve talked with other experts who are working on projects for sewage sludge alone that cost just $20 million.  So, clearly, gasification is cheap compared to anaerobic digestion at Hartland.
Our conservative estimate: $75 million yet, clearly, this is an area where we can save more.
Vendor’s estimate $50 million.
Seaterra project $330 million.


Totals

Seaterra capital costs $782 million
Tertiary Distributes with Gasification (conservative estimate) $425 million
Tertiary Distributes with Gasification (vendor estimate) $250 million

The vendor’s estimate is attractive but whether you think it is true or not it is clear that we need to explore the options of Tertiary Distributed wastewater treatment combined with Gasification for residuals.

And we haven’t even mentioned the amazing other benefits of this approach
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