Metro Vancouver is moving forward with plans to build a new $400 million secondary sewage treatment plant on the former BC rail passenger station property at McKeen Avenue and West First Street in the District of North Vancouver.
In case you missed it, the region purchased the three-hectare property for $15 million a couple of weeks back. According to DNV Mayor Richard Walton: “This is an important step toward the
development of an integrated plan for all waste treatment on the North Shore.”
Does anyone care?
http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/media/2008/2008-06-16-NewHomeNSWWTP.pdf
Friday, June 27, 2008
Metro Vancouver: North Shore Sewage Treatment Facility
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22 opinions/comments:
I thought that the BC Liberals stated that BC Railway (rail bed and tracks) property was not for sale.
Kevin Falcon, Minister responsible for BC Rail property has a letter from the Chair of the Board of Director, one John McLernon, which states on page 3 that "BCRC will continue to retain ownership of all former BC Rail lands and track infrastructure....."
Seems like a waste of time, and money, if the new North Shore Sewage Treatment facility is going to cut the corridor in half.
John McLernon was on the Board, as Chair, when he received a phone call from the RCMP which brought on the Legislature to be raided and David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi being charged by the police.
The wimps on Council who voted against the transit depot and the local NIMBYs deserve the sewage treatment plant. The NIMBYs didn't want diesel spewing busses going up and down Pemberton. Instead they are gong to get diesel spewing dump trucks hauling 'biosolids'.
As Ernie used to say 'what goes round comes around'.
The NIMBYs are going to get exactly what they deserve. Time for your District council to get their heads out of their asses and start paying attention to the future of the 'shore rather than the whining of a vocal minority.
Janice Harris stood up to the nimbys on the transit depot. She may be a touch flakey but she has more backbone than the rest of DNV Council combined.
What really pisses me off about Council's gutless decision on the Transit Depot, other than the fact that we are stuck with second rate transit service forever, is at least it would have paid taxes. Translink facilities pay taxes. GVRD facilities are exempt.
Council whines about the port not paying its fair share of taxes but they're the ones who voted away millions in taxes. Now they are patting themselves on the back about a sewage treatment plant that pays nothing.
The Norgate Nimby's should be specially taxed to make up the lost $$$$$.
I feel bad for the Norgate residents who will be living near that site. An otherwise welcome ocean breeze in July might be more like le whiff de toilette.
I feel very, very strongly that the site should be used as a transit facility.
Is it too late for Norgate residents to change their minds and ask for the transit barn instead?
I wonder if the members of both Ciy and District council are aware of how uncomfortable and unsafe the new buses are?
There has already been one accident because the drivers do not have the clear vision as they do on the old buses and it was the blind spot that caused this accident.
They are also unsafe for passengers as the seating is cut in half and there are only 20 shoulder straps to hang onto on the whole bus.
Just another "screw it to the people" for public transit in North Vancouver.
Reduced capacity has no bearing on safety. The driver is the only one who can ensure that the buses are not loaded beyond capacity and to enforce a little courtesy (young people give up your seats for the elderly!). As for this blind spot, do you have documentation of this? If so, you should be reporting it to the powers that be. Or is this a blind spot the resulted from the driver simply not shoulder checking? Well, it isn't just bus drivers guilty of that.
The bus service in both the City and District sucks and the District Council made a bad decision that impacts the residents of both municipalities. They should be held accountable for that decision come election time.
If your referring to the bus depot, give it a rest. We already have the low floor buses on a bunch of our routes.
Improving our bus service is a simple decision around a board room table to improve the routes and frequency. The location of the depot is irrelevant. Just ask vancouver, they have fantastic service even though most of their buses come from Richmond and Burnaby.
But Sue wants padded seats!
Anon Sunday, June 29, 2008 7:47:00 PM, the only flaw with your optimism is this, what happens when one or two bridges are closed due to accident? The buses won't be able to return to their depot for re-fueling or, depending on the time of closure, get to their routes on the shore at all. Sorry, but I disagree about it being a simple decision.
What we need here to control our need to drive our vehicles is a good old fashion earthquake that knocks out the north shore bridges.
Do you think Campbell's crew would build anew or continue on with the Gateway project?
If the bridges are shut down, it REALLY doesn't matter where the depot is. Most of the routes would be shut down anyways, and the buses that would be trying to leave the Northshore would be stuck here as well.
The buses carry enough fuel to stay on the road all day and in an emergency the West Van Bus depot would have to service the buses.
Janice? More backbone than the rest of Council?
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's a good one - tell me another!
Well the second narrows bridge didn't collapse, but the July 1st jumper certainly came close to giving us a sneak 5 1/2 hour preview of how it would curtail Metro Vancouver's dependency upon it were knocked out by an earthquake.
On CBC news tonight, one "Lyle Carver" of North Vancouver spoke out for our communities, but if Lyle is the same Lyle as Mr. Craver who writes here often.... SUGGESTION... make sure CBC, or any reporter for that matter, gets your name written down correctly.
I missed the clip. What did Lyle say?
Did the CBC call him for comment or did he call the CBC? Is Lyle flirting with running for an elected seat this year?
I didn't say anything at all.
What I expect he/she is referring to is a CBC News blog I participate in from time to time. It's a good one but has too many topics to have any real cameraderie like here.
I haven't talked to a CBC reporter since they called for a quote on my mother's death three years ago and the last time I actually *appeared* on CBC was on Reach For The Top in high school some 35 years ago.
So if anything other than the CBC blog is meant that's "news" (pun intended) to me!
How does BC Properties (formerly BC Rail) manage to sell our land to Metro Vancouver for treating sewage when Premier Gordon Campbell told the Legislature:
.....The total transfer taxes are in the range of $10 million to $12 million, and most of those property taxes are payable by B.C. Rail for consolidating ownership under the B.C. Railway Company. Registering the lease of the title on that is going to cost an additional number of dollars. I think that's because ..... we maintain ownership of the railbed and the right-of-way and the rail lines, as we said we would.
Probably because the property in question isn't "railbed and the right-of-way and the rail lines".
Hmm.. this is one of the most interesting (and stinky) issues in NS Politics. Two points: 1) the existing facility is on Squamish bank land, is only primary treatment and has to be replaced - probably sooner than 20 years. 2) up to 75% of the flow into the sewage system is the result of groundwater leaking in - or householders storm drains feeding in when they shouldn't. ie the plant could be 1/5th the size of the current to serve the real need IF we addressed the problem of lack of monitoring (and probably metering) of the amount of waste water actually going into the system. And you thought sewers were boring!!!
Squamish band land or Squamish claimed land?
The existing facility is on Squamish land (NOT 'land under land claim' but on long term lease similar to the legal status of Park Royal South).
For those who might be interested Richard Walton is doing a Powerpoint presentation next Monday at Council on sewage treatment in a Swedish town of 98000 which he saw when in Sweden recently.
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