Sewage lagoon or flyash mountain?

To Powell River Legacy group:

i read some of the letters and was wondering about the lagoon in wildwood where all the sewage from wildwood goes, is there not a concern there?
id rather have flyash then sewage if i had a choice

dan

Reply from the PR Legacy group:

The residents of Wildwood are always concerned that our lagoon be properly maintained. We have little to worry about. A correctly operated sewage lagoon is an effective way to treat household waste water. In theory the bacteria in the lagoon digest the waste and the outflow into the ocean is clear. Under normal conditions the Wildwood sewage lagoon smells about the same as the municipal waste treatment plant and the water quality of the outflow is often better. The care taken by the municipal crew is appreciated.

The new above grade landfill is a different story. The problem with flyash is not the smell, it is the small size of the particles and the carcinogens they contain. It has been shown that if you inhale them they will hurt you. Catalyst has the problem of flyash and flyash disposal precisely because government regulations require that they remove those very same particulates from their powerboiler stack emmissions. Re-exposing this product to the elements is not an appropriate solution. It will erode and become airborne in the community. The studies done so far in regards to airborne particles are incomplete at best. There are many reasons this location would never be approved for a new landfill. It is in a residential neighbourhood. Many people live nearby in wildwood and many more live in the townsite and westview. The prevailing winds in the late fall and winter blow from the landfill towards Wildwood. For most of the remaining months the prevailing winds blow towards Townsite and Westview. Our entire city will be affected.

The landfill expansion proposal projects the dump to be full in the year 2044. Until that time the flyash, asbestos, and old pulp mill dregs that Catalyst has appllied to dispose of will be exposed to the full force of nature.

Catalyst's spokespeople say that they have been unable to find a way to reuse flyash. In other countries flyash is added to concrete. Why not here? Catalyst's spokespeople will tell you that there are too many contaminants in the flyash, the concrete it is added to breaks down. Catalyst's spokespeople will also tell you that the same flyash when mixed with only water will make a solid, durable mountain. A mountain which will have many concrete trucks drive up and down its slopes every day. Supposedly this slurry will still not erode, nor release dust into our community at any time in the future. Will you believe them?

Reply 2:

Hi Dan,

Hmm...well, as I understand it, the problem with sewage lagoons is controlling bacteria and such things. I haven't heard that there are health and safety problems with this particular sewage lagoon system, but if you know something more about this, please let me know! I don't think it's rocket science to make those sorts of things function well. The trick is to keep bacteria (usually e.coli) from contacting groundwater. Do that, and you're good-to-go.

Industrial waste, on the other hand is a lot trickier to get right. Dioxins build up in your body fat over the years and are one of the most toxic group of chemicals known to man. The Wildwood landfill has already contaminated the groundwater over the years with historic dioxin levels at 200 times the maximum allowable limit. (26,706 pg/L to be exact according to the Golder environmental report)

The half-life of 2,3,7,8-TCDD ( a dioxin) has been reported to be approximately 25 to 100 years in subsurface soil and 9 to 15 years at the soil surface (Paustenbach et al., 1992).

The approximate half-life of dioxin in humans was estimated to range from 6 to 10 years (Pirkle, 1989).

Half-life is the time required for half the quantity of a substance deposited in a living organism to be metabolized or eliminated by normal biological processes. That means that if you ingested 2 lbs of dioxins tomorrow afternoon, ten years from now you would still be carrying 1 lb of dioxin in your body fat. -After 10 years, you were only able to get rid of half of it.  And in that whole time it would be making you sick.

It takes infinitesimal amounts of dioxins to cause adverse health effects. Dioxins are measured in picograms per liter (pg/L). That is one trillionth of a gram... (.000000000001 gram) It only takes a very, very tiny amount to do a LOT of damage.

Acute exposures greatly increase the risk of cancer. Smaller chronic exposures cause the chemical to act like an "environmental hormone", disrupting the human endocrine and immune system. This may also be the way that it eventually causes cancer over time. Research is ongoing.

You say, " id rather have flyash then sewage if i had a choice"

You do have a choice, Dan. This whole community has a choice. I choose to hold whatever system I am dealing with, whether it be sewage or industrial landfills, to the standards that have been provided by the provincial government. According to those guidelines, no one should ever have allowed a landfill where it is in Wildwood in the first place. According to those same guidelines it was closed in 1995 to protect public health. Today, those same guidelines dictate that Catalyst's proposal is unsafe and in violation of the guidelines designed to protect us.

Let's make choices together that make this a beautiful, prosperous, healthy place to live. It's our right and our responsibility to do so.

Reply 3:

Dear Dan-

The sewage lagoon in Wildwood is a municipal system which collects the grey and black water from the homes in Wildwood. It functions by retaining the water till the organic content in the water has been eliminated with the result that the water leaving the lagoon is not a health hazard. The lagoon in Wildwood also is the receiving point for all the solid matter which is pumped out of all the septic tanks in the whole Regional District of Powell River, as well as some solids from the Lund Sewage treatment facility as well as from the Sliammon Sewage facility. These extra solids place a significant demand on the Wildwood System. Yes, it is a concern, but the City of Powell River assures us that the discharge meets B.C. effluent guide lines.

Please don't exercise your choice. –

---in the air----Fly ash is a very fine dust with particle sizes that are so small that once they enter your lungs, the body cannot expel the particle. This leads to increasing difficulties of lung function if significant amounts are breathed in. This is also a concern as decreasing lung function hits the older people , the very young people and the ones that are already ill. Also, fly ash carries with it small amounts of dioxins and furans [which are the result of burning salt laden wood] which can get into your system. There is no safe amount of dioxin or furan. ---next to the Wildwood Sewage lagoon, the worst that can happen is that there might be a smell from time to time.

----in the water---The leachate that is inside the landfill site will be quite alkaline [you would not want to put your hand in the liquid for very long as severe skin aggravation will result.], the leachate is supposed to be totally collected and transferred to a water treatment system. For the first few years, the system will probably work fairly well and get worse over time. No less a source than the United States Department of Environment says that ''All landfills leak.'' As for the sewage lagoon, i wouldn't want to put my finger in the water either, but it doesn't stop the ducks and bears. The discharge is no problem at all. This lagoon also probably leaks.

---sounds---the sounds from the landfill are constant and hard to ignore. The beeping sounds of trucks backing up and the sound of hydraulic systems make it difficult to sleep in if you are near. The sounds from a sewage lagoon are ones of water running, if there is any sound at all.

---sights--this landfill is going to be 20 meters high [the room you are in while you read this will be just over 2 meters high] and will be totally in sight for the life of the landfill. [37 years for this part ---with more to come after]. There will be no evidence of life on the landfill. In the lagoon, you might get tired of the ducks.