Concerns about major additional population growth in Hillsburgh and
Erin village – above and beyond the 10,000 new residents already considered
feasible in the next 20-30 years – were expressed at a public meeting last
Thursday at Centre 2000.
It was a Public Information Centre hosted by the Town of Erin as
part of the Wastewater Environmental Assessment, designed to update residents
on current developments and provide an opportunity to ask questions.
“Ensuring the community is both informed and engaged is an
important component of this process,” said Mayor Allan Alls. “A sewage
treatment plant will unquestionably move our community forward, allowing us to
better address our tax imbalance, help our existing businesses, and bring new
jobs to our community”.
All of the information boards and slides presented last week are available
in the Wastewater section of the Town’s website, erin.ca.
The project is now moving into Phase 3 of a 5-stage process that had
its first public meeting in 2009. Town consultants The Ainley Group will now be
exploring more detailed design alternatives, including options for sewage
collection and treatment. The ideal location for discharge into the river, the
treatment plant and pumping stations will also be analyzed.
They intend to hold another Information Centre this November, and
wrap up the entire EA in March next year.
Last week’s meeting focused on several environmental measurements
and wastewater treatment factors, all of which affect how many homes could be
serviced by a sewer system. (See article below for an overview.)
Actual decisions on population growth and approval of subdivisions
will be made later as amendments to the Official Plan, but the capacity of the
sewer system is a key element.
The current rural population of the Town is about 7,800 and expected
to grow very slowly. The urban population is now about 4,500, and was
previously expected to grow by only 1,500, to a total of 6,000. Recent changes
to the proposed parameters have resulted in the growth projection over 20-30
years being revised to 10,000 new urban residents, for a total of 14,500.
This would allow for “full build-out” of lands inside the urban
boundaries already designated for development, while still meeting provincial
regulations for treated effluent entering the river.
Ainley Project Manager Joe Mullan said that BM Ross, the firm that
conducted the Servicing and Settlement Master Plan, was “very conservative” in
its proposed removal of phosphorus from sewage effluent. This was a factor in
the 6,000 cap, which was vigorously defended by Credit Valley Conservation
(CVC).
Mullan said that more aggressive treatment, accepted in the
wastewater industry, could cut the total phosphorous by 70 per cent. This would
be a major factor in allowing more population, but the strategy does not yet
have provincial approval.
“It’s a very high quality effluent,” said Mullan. “This has been
reviewed by CVC and the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, and I
am quite confident that these numbers will be acceptable to those agencies.”
Jay Mowat, a member of the Public Liaison Committee and Transition
Erin, noted that Ainley says it is still using “conservative” numbers. He asked
how much population the sewage plant could actually handle, if the parameters
were to change again.
“Could we be expecting 20,000 people, 25,000 people?” he said.
Mullan said even if there was a technical opportunity to handle more
people, the treatment intensity could be cut back to conform to the current
population projection.
If the County were to ask Erin to take 25,000 more people, Mullan
said he didn’t think the proposed plant could handle it. But he could not give
an actual maximum number, since the analysis has been focused on the current
projection.
“We don’t want to get into the What If’s and What If’s,” he said.
“This is a viable solution we are presenting to the Town that will allow you to
make some serious decisions on your growth moving forward. We don’t want this
to be your driver for growth. We want this to not be a constraint.”
Mayor Alls has been suggesting that rural residents of Erin should
be expected to help pay for the cost of a sewage treatment plant, even though
they would not get the direct benefit of sewer service and the higher property
values that would result in urban zones.
In response to a question on this, Ainley Technical Team Lead Gary
Scott said that Ontario’s Sustainable Water and Sewage Systems Act requires
that the local cost of the sewer system and treatment plant (after any grants
or developer contributions) to be paid by the residents who are actually hooked
up to the system.
Rural residents will get some benefit, since the plant will be equipped
to process septage – the waste pumped out of septic tanks. Currently, disposal
firms charge to transport this waste to plants in distant locations such as
Collingwood.
There is a risk that these plants could stop
accepting the waste at any time, resulting in even higher disposal costs at
more distant sites.
