Re: Sewer Agreement and Sleeping Easy
I have followed the discussions about the sewage agreement. The real winner in the signing of the five-year EPCOR Sewage agreement is the opponent of sewer expansion in the Sooke area. There is no chance that EPCOR will want to invest in the infrastructure cost of expanding the sewer on a five-year agreement.
Trying to save Sooke residents money with the signing of a five-year EPCOR contract is just a distraction. The only expansion that will occur now will be a developer adjacent to the serviced area that wishes to tie in.
Opponents of sewer expansion outside the service area have chosen to be stewards of their own waste. As the steward of their own waste I would expect that proper repair, maintenance, and scheduled pumping of their septic field are occurring. If this is being carried out I can sleep easy. I do know that seeing a septic truck in the Sooke area is a rare occurrence.
Acreage can be expensive to tie into for the sewer servicing, but it also can be forgiving to a failed septic field. What is not forgiving is the contaminated groundwater, ditches, streams, that ultimately flow into the Sooke Harbour and Basin or area lakes.
No one wants the tie-in cost or annual sewer tax bill, but now we have a sewer system — let‘s use it.
Roy Osselton
Sooke