Tuesday, October 15, 2013

More sewer questions

   I still cannot understand how the District of Tofino was measuring the temperature of  the sewage discharge instead of the volume ?? As is noted below the permit requires that the flow be measured and recorded daily.How could this go unnoticed on the first day that there was an error ? How could it go unnoticed for months ?
 What I also cannot understand is why Council is seemingly unconcerned with this debacle ?

From:MINUTES OF THE DISTRICT OF TOFINO COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING
HELD IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS
MONDAY 22-OCTOBER-2012 AT 6:00 P.M.

Tofino Sewer System Background
• Tofino’s first sewer main and outfall was down Fourth Street
from school to breakwater at harbour.
• Serviced all of the properties within gravity accessibility.
• Installed in 1972 by Federal Government as part of
Wickaninnish School project.
• October 1984 present discharge permit PE 07058 issued for
new sewer system to service entire district includes outfall
locations at Cedar Street and First Street discharging into
Duffin Passage.
• This sewer infrastructure was funded by 11,000,000 Tourism
Improvement Grant

                                                                                                                                                        Conditions of Permit PE 07058
• Discharge of effluent from Cedar and First street comminutors
to Duffin Passage to a depth of 34m.
• Maximum discharge 3800 cubic meters per day.
• The characteristics of discharge to be typical of preliminary
treated municipal sewage and typical fine screened fish
processing effluent.
• The authorized works outfalls, diffusers, bar screens and
comminutors to be operational from permit date forward.
They are required to inspected and maintained in good
working order.
• No waste is to bypass the approved treatment process.
• Pipeline to be posted above the high water mark.

Conditions of permit PE 07058
• Outfalls lines to be inspected annually.
• Provisions for future disinfection.
• Based on Receiving Environment Monitoring additional
treatment could be required.
• Solid waste from system to be disposed of by ministry
approved method.
• The system to be operated by an operator certified by the
EOCP.
• The flows are to be measured and recorded daily in a 24 hour 
period.
• Receiving Environment Monitoring Program to established
and carried out in accordance with Ministry accepted methods.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like someone is due for a promotion.

Anonymous said...

nobody cares.give up

Anonymous said...

Are Tofino Council and US Congress children of same parents?

Anonymous said...

Are the same operators in charge of the water system ?

Anonymous said...

not operators BOSS.

Anonymous said...

Why does no one from the DOT respond to this? This is important and they need to give the people of Tofino answers!

Anonymous said...

OK, so this permit, as I understand, was issued 29 years ago. Tofino, 29 years ago, was a far far different place from what is here today. What was the population then? 700? How many fish processing plants were operating then? 7-8-9? How many tourists came then? a couple thousand?
All my answers, of course, are only guesses but it's obvious that this permit, like the infrastructure attached to it, is totally out of date and holds no relationship whatever to current circumstances.
So why would it matter if the conditions of the permit are met or not? Who cares? What is going to happen if they aren't? Is the provincial government going to put a lock on my toilet?
Again, who cares? Christy Clarke's government is flat broke, they can't afford a weekend trip to Tofino, let alone do anything about sewage issues here. And the only pipes Harper is interested in carry oil, not sewage.
How much s**t is flowing through the pipes each 24 hours?? I don't know. I don't know why it would matter. I'm happy to know that it still continues to run downhill.
I'm not a genius, but don't we keep a detailed measurement of the water put into the system, and people get advised of it on their water bills?? Wouldn't the output at the sewer outfall be equal to the input at the water meters? Why would we measure it twice?

Ralph Tieleman said...

We also have the effluent from Esowista to factor in to the equation.This wasn't the case when the permit was issued

Anonymous said...

I'm exhausted.....I've been up all night worrying about the volume of the effluent coming from Esowista.
C'mon, how could this possibly be of any concern to anyone? Can anyone explain to me why this information would be required?
6:42PM says that "This is important...." Why? Who cares?
Someone needs to get a life.....

Ralph Tieleman said...

This information is required by the provincial Ministry of the Environment.

Anonymous said...

And what happens if they don't get it? Apparently, nothing.
What do they need it for? How is it used?
How does any of this affect me, as a Tofino taxpayer? Will my taxes go up? Will I lose services or the potential for better services? Is there some risk to the infrastructure system or the environment that I'm not aware of?
Or is this just about some silly ommission of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, and stirring up s**t to serve someone's personal agenda?
"The provincial environment dept requires it". Tell me why they require it and tell me why we should give a s**t.
Personally, I'm not interested in paying district staff to measure my sewage on a daily basis. That would be more information than I would need.

Anonymous said...

can you say massive fines of over 100,000 dollars a day.pleading poor only goes so far until the s..t hits the fan.

Anonymous said...

Massive $100,000 fines, eh? Yeah, right. It's called "fear-mongering". Back it up with some facts, tell us where you got this info. Who is going to fine whom? What law or regulation? Who determines the size of he fine? Who determines if there even might be a fine? We've heard this kind of garbage before.... remember Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction"?
Massive fines? I call Bulls**t!

Anonymous said...

Sewer contamination is as fake as climate change and the moon landing. All fear mongering .

Anonymous said...

Can anyone prove where the sewer contamintion originates from ? It is probably from Kenya.

Anonymous said...

I support dumping raw sewage and the Northern Gateway pipeline

Ralph Tieleman said...

Maybe we could get Mr Floatie as another Tofino mascot ! Tourist will love him !

Anonymous said...

(6) A person who, holding a permit or approval issued to the person under this Act to introduce waste into the environment, introduces waste into the environment without having complied with the requirements of the permit or approval commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1 000 000 or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both.
(7) A person who, holding a permit or approval issued under this Act to introduce waste into the environment, fails to comply with the requirements of the permit or approval commits an offence and is liable to a penalty not exceeding $300 000 or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both.

Anonymous said...

Fines. Not a problem. We can just come up with a new revenue source to cover the cost.....perhaps pay parking at the beaches.

Anonymous said...

At one time a few years ago the districts outfall allowed discharge gallonage or m³ was exceeded significantly according to the discharge readings.
the Ministry of the environment informed the district they were eligible for a million-dollar fine And we ran around in a tither wondering how to pay a $1 million fine.
when the representative of the MOE came to a meeting to tell us how bad we were it was decided to extend the permit to include the excess discharge.
case closed.

Ralph Tieleman said...

The point isn't about fines.....It's that we've been paying staff and engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars to deal with the sewer plan and because nobody was paying attention we are set back another year in being able to submit the plan ......no accountability

Anonymous said...

Well, at least it's not "real" money. Don't forget that the district office and council deal in "tax dollars", money that none of them have to work or sacrifice for. There's lots to spend, so if a few hundred grand gets "a little bit lost or wasted" it don't really matter. We can always go back to the bottomless fund and get another kick at the can "next time".

Anonymous said...

Wow ! if we are really not concerned with the fine from the provincial Government then let just get bigger pump and we can all just surf the waves that the pumps can produce. and the water will be warmer too !

Anonymous said...

A certified operator should know the difference between temperature and the required flow data? And a certified Public Work Supervisor does, and is paid to review the data monthly and write the reports to the Ministry. So what give ? Why is this not being done ? and what are my tax dollars paying them for? Shame on the certified operators and the manager for allowing this to take place. No wonder the infrastructure is screwed here! I hope my house sells soon !

Anonymous said...

A certified operator should know the difference between temperature and the required flow data? And a certified Public Work Supervisor does, and is paid to review the data monthly and write the reports to the Ministry. So what give ? Why is this not being done ? and what are my tax dollars paying them for? Shame on the certified operators and the manager for allowing this to take place. No wonder the infrastructure is screwed here... I agree "certified operator" is a key word here, "competent manager" is another.