Transition Erin members studying the choices faced by the Town in the Servicing and Settlement Master Plan (SSMP) want to see Hillsburgh included in any plan for municipal sewer servicing.
Town Council was to discuss the issue at this week’s meeting, and were being asked to make a decision about which sewer and future growth options will be analyzed in the final phase of the SSMP, with the goal of finishing the study by this summer.
Analyzing the possibility of servicing Erin village, but not Hillsburgh, was one of the possible options. Members of Transition Erin’s Wastewater Solutions Working Group said that option should not even be referred to consultant Watson & Associates for study.
In a letter, they urged council to direct the consultant “to only evaluate the cost to service Erin and Hillsburgh together (Option 3.1) by both collection systems; small bore and gravity-fed.”
“The study should include the scenario of two treatment facilities, one in each village; and the second scenario for one treatment facility in Erin, connected to Hillsburgh by a pipe,” they said.
“We strongly believe that if Council decides the Preferred Solution is Municipal Servicing, both communities need to be serviced, concurrently or sequentially. We also believe servicing should first be directed to those properties with failed/failing septic systems within the urban cores, and thereafter to those properties which would not be in compliance to the 2012 Building Code.”
Most sewer systems in Ontario are gravity-fed, using deeply-trenched pipes. Small Bore Systems (SBS) are a less expensive alternative, using septic tanks at individual homes, with effluent sent to a smaller treatment plant through narrow pipes that do not require the road to be dug up.
The SBS method does not have the support of consultant BM Ross or of Credit Valley Conservation, but Transition Erin would like to have it analyzed now as a possible strategy.
