PCB-Tainted Sewage Spurs Treatment Call

Friday, July 11, 2003
VICTORIA -- Greater Victoria's raw sewage, which is pumped untreated into Juan de Fuca Strait, contains levels of toxic PCBs 160 times greater than provincial guidelines and potentially harms marine life, says the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

The Capital Regional District continues to pump 120 million litres of raw, screened sewage into the ocean every day -- a practice that was recently approved by the province, which signed off on the CRD's liquid waste management plan.

Contained in that sewage is more than three grams a day of polychlorinated biphenels (PCBs), a toxic, persistent organic pollutant that does not break down readily in the environment, says Sierra Legal staff scientist John Werring.

CRD environment chairman David Cubberley dismissed Sierra Legal's claims as "unnecessarily alarmist."

Sierra Legal renewed calls for Greater Victoria to move to secondary treatment, which it says has proven to reduce PCBs by 99 per cent from the sewage stream. And the group was critical of Water Land and Air Protection Minister Joyce Murray's recent approval of the CRD liquid waste plan, which essentially says sewage treatment will only be built when environmental "triggers" indicate it is necessary.

Werring says that means no treatment will be built for 15 or 20 years.

"What we've clearly identified here is a point source of pollution," Werring said. "But it can be managed. Simply by implementing secondary sewage treatment, you can eliminate 99 per cent (of PCBs) and up to 92 per cent of all the other organics. So it makes a lot of sense to get rid of that material."

Cubberley said treatment is not going to address the PCB issue and using PCBs as a rationale for secondary treatment is "spurious."

"Secondary treatment is not basically about getting toxic contaminants out of sewage. It's about separating solids from liquids. Doing that has some impact but you then have to deal with the materials in the solids and the followup treatments generally don't deal with things like PCBs or other major toxic contaminants," he said.

Sierra Legal says it's not surprising PCBs have been found in high levels in southern resident killer whales -- one of the most contaminated mammals in the world when it comes to PCBs.

The environmental group, recognizing there are other sources of PCBs, is not making a direct link between Greater Victoria sewage and PCB levels in whales.

"I don't think we can," Werring said. "We do know these animals have exceedingly high levels of PCBs but to actually put a marker on the PCBs and find out where exactly they're going and into what is difficult to say.

"All we can say is these things are being discharged directly into the Strait of Juan de Fuca where the whales frequent and feed. It's being taken up in the food and it's bio-magnified through the food chain."

Werring called it "unbelievable" provincial approval was given to the CRD waste management plan.

"We're saying enough is enough. It is quite unbelievable that the government has approved this plan despite the fact that for 15 years they've been saying you have to put planned schedules in. You have to come up with something."

Cubberley said any link between PCBs in Greater Victoria sewage and orcas is "an enormous stretch."

"There are primary sources of PCBs in sediments in harbours in Puget Sound that are concentrating up the food chain that are part of the food supply. The thing to grasp is that PCBs, unfortunately, are in general circulation in our environment like a lot of other toxic contaminants.

"There are some heavy depositions of them on the ocean floor in the harbour. To the extent that they are disturbed or other organisms using the harbour floor to forage concentrate them, they begin to work their way up the food chain. There's a very remote connection if there's any," Cubberley.

He said the best approach to dealing with such contaminants is the one the CRD is taking -- an aggressive source control program to eliminate toxic contaminants before they are flushed down the drain.

Murray said her ministry just found out about the Sierra Legal's findings.

"So we can't comment on its accuracy. Our staff will be obtaining the full document and they're going to review it," Murray said.

While the CRD is responsible for handling sewage, she said the conditions she imposed on the region through her approval of the liquid waste management plan for moving to sewage treatment are both stringent and scientifically driven.

"They are an early warning system and when those triggers are reached, the CRD must take action to manage its waste and treat it. Once the early warning system is triggered, the CRD has three years to have a treatment program in place."