Pump sewage UPHILL and INTO our beautiful little village?
Pump sewage UPHILL and INTO our beautiful little village?
Does Frelighsburg's proposed multi-million dollar sewage treatment project pass the 'smell test'?
EDEN GREIG MUIR, FRELIGHSBURG, 2009/06/09.
At a May 6, 2009, public meeting at the town hall, plans were presented for the village's
sewer network and waste-water treatment facility. Many citizens were surprised to learn that
their own septic tanks would be rendered obsolete, since the new plan is for a "black-water" system (raw sewage)
rather than the previously discussed "gray-water" system.
Another shock: The proposed system would connect to an industrial site about 1 km west of the town, adding
to the hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage that would be pumped uphill and dumped into
a "roseau" basin to be excavated in a beautiful meadow
just behind the Catholic Church property. Is this a wise strategy for
a tiny, picturesque, sweet-smelling village that is famously listed as
"un des plus beaux villages du Québec?"
Here are five common-sense questions that need to be
seriously discussed by the citizens of Frelighsburg
before the day (coming soon) when village taxpayers get the chance to sign the
register and force a referendum on this project:
1. Why would a town ever pump sewage uphill if there were any possible downhill alternative?
This isn't rocket science--it's just a simple matter of gravity!
Who will pay for repairing the damages when the system fails and sewage is
released in the village below (as has been documented by local newspapers,
at Lake Selby's sewage pumps)? Is it "green" to depend on an expensive on an array of heavy-duty
pumps and backup systems with a high maintenance budget, when gravity could do most of the job?
2. Can the town guarantee that there will not be nasty odors released from a large
roseaux basin full of sewage? The proposed site is very close to residences,
the sports fields, the school, the arboretum, and the church.
PHOTO: Aerial view of the village of Frelighsburg, looking west. Do you believe that there is no
site available to collect and treat sewage other than behind the Catholic Church in the foreground?!
Note the apple-packing plant 1 km away in the distance (west) which will be connected to the town sewers.
3.
Doesn't the new plan to lay an extra kilometer of sewer pipe west
of the village provide us with an excellent opportunity
to reverse the flow of the waste water, a new chance to select an appropriate site
for the roseaux basin to the west of, and below, the town? Have these downstream, downhill
sites been surveyed and carefully analyzed for their suitability now that the
'center of gravity' of the project has shifted west? There appear to be several
sites west of the town that are well above the flood zone. They may be in green zones, and de-zoning would require
some delay due to the CPTAQ procedures, but isn't a delay preferable to selecting the wrong site?
4. Why did the project switch from a gray-water system that connected to
our septic tanks (some of them installed recently at tremendous cost) to a
black-water system (raw sewage directly from houses)? The explanation
given at the May 6, 2009 meeting (as I understood it) was that residents could not be trusted to
maintain their septic tanks, so the roseaux system might get blocked. Obviously this makes no
sense, since many municipalities like Stanbridge East use small diameter 4" and 6" pipes in
their new gray-water systems. They simple require residents to service their septic tanks regularly.
It was stated that with a black-water system we would need sewer pipes of a much larger diameter,
which obviously raises the cost of our project.
5. Is it a "green" solution to pump sewage from an industrial site that is 1 km away,
into the center of a small historic village where buildable land is rare and precious?
Could we not find a better use for the charming meadows behind the Catholic Church? Perhaps
family housing, maybe some "green" model housing so that more families could live in the
village within walking distance of the school?
In conclusion, we are talking about the biggest and most expensive
engineering project in the history of Frelighsburg, at
least since the construction of the railroad in the 1870s!
Before we spend over three million dollars of taxpayers' money, let's make sure we have come up with
the best possible solution for the town, the residents and the future generations that will have
to live with and maintain the sewer and waste-water treatment system we are imposing on them!
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