A Local View of Clean Water and Sewers

Personal Analysis of Zone 3 Proposed Sewer Project by Lambton Shores August 2010

From: Roy Merkley, 10341 Maplewood Ave. Southcott Pines
​ Grand Bend, Ontario N0M 1T0

I am a semi-retired special machine tool design consultant with a lifetime experience in automation and special equipment primarily for the auto industry. My knowledge includes many applications of hydraulic and control systems.

The following summarizes my personal opinion on the current status of the above project which has been pursued by the Lambton Shores Municipal Council for the past several years.

1- Are existing septic tank systems in Zone 3 a significant environmental problem?
Since our ground water is not extracted or used for any personal use, the only possible impact that it can have environmentally is leaching into the lake or the old river bed.
To my knowledge there has never been any evidence or proof that this has been an issue with septic systems in Zone 3. During this past summer which has been one of the hottest in many years our beaches have been safe so far with heavy usage and peak occupancy in Zone 3.
In the past the only visible environmental pollution that I have ever witnessed is run off from surrounding fields through the drains and rivers after heavy rains. Also at certain times of the year large flocks of Canada geese leave great amounts of 'goose poop' on our shores.
The dilution factor with such a large body of water in Lake Huron seems to be able to handle this for the most part. Thus any small traces that could ever leach into the lake through the sand base from our septic systems must be insignificant.
The test results from the groundwater study listed in the environmental assessment when properly analyzed , do not indicate any overall environmental problems due to the existing septic systems in zone 3.

I firmly believe that there is not now or ever was or ever will be a reason to condemn septic tank systems in the sandy soil of Zone 3. If properly maintained and upgraded when necessary to the latest technology, they provide the most cost effective and least troublesome form of treating residential waste effluent in this area. In addition new legislation will ensure that septic systems will be even safer for the environment than before. They require no external energy to operate and require no support or liability by the municipality and are 'fail safe'.
In my mind the groundwater test results and Dillon's total lack of including tertiary septic systems as an alternative in zone 3 can not overshadow the above historical observations and basic facts.

2- Is the 'Low Pressure Grinder Pump' collection system proposed by Dillon Consulting a feasible alternative?

Sewer design and construction is not rocket science and has been around since the Roman Empire, thus I cannot understand why Dillon Consulting would ever consider recommending such a high risk collection system using grinder pumps for this project. To make it the first choice is even more astounding for the following reasons.

- no good evidence of any other similar installation of grinder pumps operating successfully in an area as large as Zone 3
- overall installation consists of over a thousand pumps, motors, controllers and valves as well as a multitude of piping, lift stations, inspection stations and warning systems – most of which are potentially troublesome with a possibility of leakage
- system is dependent on hydro and requires hook up to every residence -- outages are a problem
- requires monitoring and maintenance capability
- higher risk for breakdowns due to freezing winter conditions when many homes are unoccupied and not using their system
- unsightly installation if warning systems and access covers are visible
- requires municipal liability for operation and maintenance

This should be a 'no brainer'. Grinder pump systems are not 'user friendly' and have a much higher risk for problems and eventual failure. Since the fall of 2008 it has been apparent that the majority of residents in Zone 3 do not want this solution. Why would a municipality consider forcing a high risk untried system on an electorate that does not want it? This should not even be considered if the costs were nothing. For Dillon to propose this would make one question their credibility and suggest poor judgment.

1- How is Lambton Shores Council presently proceeding with this project?

This council has contracted Dillon Consulting to prepare an Environmental Assessment and Notice of Completion which it has done and sent to the Ministry.
This document considers only two alternatives with a 'low pressure grinder type' collection system in Zone 3 as its first choice with gravity sewers being the only other. Any form of septic bed systems were ruled out early in the study back in 2006 and are not offered as any alternative. It seems that very little if any resources were allocated to investigating up to date 'eco friendly' septic systems.

It is my understanding that if the Ministry approves the request it is then in the hands of the municipality to implement it with the blessing of the province.

2- General Personal Conclusion

From my past experience with projects involving municipal and provincial bureaucracies, it would seem to me that Lambton Shores is well down the road to obtaining formal approval to proceed with what they wanted from the beginning being 'sewers everywhere in our area and a brand new treatment plant'.

It is troubling to me that this vision by whomever were driving this in the beginning of the project seemed to overshadow actual needs of individual areas within the study. The results indicate to me that the 'Environmental Assessment' by Dillon is more tailored to satisfying this vision than to address the real needs for disposal of waste effluent in our area. Remember the classic definition of a consultant's role in a project is 'tell us what you want us to say and we will give it to you'.

To completely ignore any form of septic system as an alternative when our old existing systems have been here for in some cases the better part of 50 years and our beaches are as good as ever with never a health risk in the zone 3 area, is inexcusable. I believe that our septic systems can be improved and with ever improving systems being available there would never be a need to change horses and install sewers in zone 3. The big advantage in this approach is that we take government out of play except to administer environmental standards. This has to be the most cost effective way in the long run and in my opinion has not a chance of happening without scrapping the 'Notice of Completion'.

A major concern that I have is with the municipality being so solidly in bed with Dillon Consulting. There apparently was no consideration at the start of this project to go out to tender for civil engineering services for this study and apparently no fixed price agreed to. The actual cost breakdown to Dillon and Golder Associates for professional services should be disclosed as well as the financial terms of their contracts. Unsubstantiated figures that I have read indicate Dillon's original cost estimate started at $18,000.00 and now exceed $220,000.00. This is like giving them a blank cheque and hoping for the best.
It is my understanding that Dillon was the company that looked after the Pinery Park grinder pump project. It would be interesting to know if they competed for that job and if they received a percentage of the overall cost or had to work to a fixed price.

If Lambton Shores chooses to implement a 'low pressure grinder pump' collection system in Zone 3 it will haunt this council for years. The residents will be left with a poor, costly, inferior system and Dillon Consulting will walk away with our money.

Good fiscal management should include competitive quotes with fixed price terms and negotiation only for changes instituted by the customer.

Finally you should never let fancy studies and reports from experts trump common sense. History will give you more than enough instances of this happening.

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

The Province of Ontario wants to Improve it's Water

• Contact information for the general public
  416-325-4000 
  1-800-565-4923
  
• Lyndsay Miller
  Minister's Office
  416-212-1625
  lyndsay.miller2@ontario.ca

• Kate Jordan
  Communications Branch
  416-314-6666 
  kate.jordan@ontario.ca

Ministry of the Environment
ontario.ca/environment

What is progress?  Is it the application of new technology, or is it a change in people's mental processes that leads to fundamental improvements in their welfare.  I believe it is the latter and I am sure it is very hard to accomplish and not something a government can do!

It's wonderful to hear that Ontario wants to lead the world in clean water, but have they forgotten that they have created a messy environment that humans and technology alone cannot resolve!

Read this first:

http://news.ontario.ca/ene/en/2010/05/leading-the-world-in-water-innovation-and-conservation.html

See what the Ontario province says are it's objectives:

http://news.ontario.ca/mei/en/2010/08/ten-year-infrastructure-plan-will-support-economic-growth.html

There is a disconnect and I was surprised when I opened the Ontario Province's web site for the first time. Obviously, as an old time Ontario and Quebec resident that has been away to other lands, I am like a visitor here from Mars looking at earthly Ontario and wondering what the poor earthlings have done to deceive themselves, or is it all rhetoric for public consumption.  

You do one thing while saying another.  What is this public myth that everyone laps up?  Do they not notice the negative change over the past fifty years?  Or, has it been so gradual that it is not noticed?  Or more likely, there is only so much that you can do as a government department because human nature is not going to change much to really open people's eyes to what they are doing that has a negative impact.  

However, if you give people the feel good about their efforts perhaps you can escape the realization when it eventually arrives that you did not do very much at all because:

1.  You did not know what to do!

2.  You could not change human nature to do the opposite of what you wanted them to do!

Both of the above define limits to your effectiveness.

I read with pride that Ontario preaches and practices clean water, yet when as a stranger from another province, I see horrendous shortcomings, I have to wonder what all the polemic is about.

I wrote the following letter this morning to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment with regard to the Grand Bend Sewer system which I think is about cleaning water: 

  
Dear Cindy!

Thank you for your very informative letter. I do appreciate your answering my message of concerns about how the local project has evolved and that it has a decadent life of it's own that is hitting many surprising extremes from my point of view. I would prefer that the province figure out it's sanitation issues within the provincial park's limits rather than expect a nearby locality to absorb such costs.

The local community should in turn figure out its own sanitation issues within guidelines that are established by the larger community. After all, the population of Grand Bend is very small being under 2,000 and from a map survey it's lagoons are much larger than towns with populations multiples it's size. In summer, the population grows, but the systems for each cottage absorb such expansion very well normally.

By making Grand Bend into a typical polluting town, one is using the popular language of growth and progress. Our reality, however, is that the temporary wealthy drive the price of homes here up so high that local residents cannot survive on the limited numbers of jobs that exist year round. By placing additional costs onto the local people, the province is driving out potential investment and it is not enough to say the province is investing in Grand Bend since government jobs and money here are not the answer to the location's needs. We need more sustainable investment that comes from more people looking after their own environments and taking personal responsibility for their home and local community environments.

Who counts the co2 that is being created from the concrete poured or the tarmac laid? Who weighs the vehicles that pour co2 into the airs above the roads that travel through the village? Are there no long term standards, or are there no effective agencies to examine these issues and participate in discussions around the world? What are you doing?

My overall concern is that there seems an absence of clear design in the environmental approach of the province that continues blindly down paths that are not sustainable over the longer term. No will exists to slow down the deterioration. Bad habits of environmental destruction continue. The consultants retained for the sewerage project seem to take a very partial view of the environment and local economy. The sewer needs to be placed in the wider context of the environment. What is good technology for a small rural community that has absentee residents most of the time?

I am reminded of Schumacher's phrase that small is beautiful. What appropriate technologies are there for the farmers who would drive lawn mowers rather than plant trees. They spend millions on grass fertilizers and weed killers, but don't plant trees. Golf courses abound without lakes and tall trees. Swathes of land are cleared of trees and topsoil, bulldozing is a hobby of local employment for semi-skilled people who should be doing carpentry and working in furniture factories or making and installing affordable hardwood flooring in every home rather than manufacturing with chemicals for artificial fabrics that pollute and cause cancer.

Although we have trees, we need many more spaces for tree planting. We need to restore the forest not take it down, bulldoze and pore yet more concrete and build more second homes for those who drive ever larger vehicles and have a mindset of a oil guzzling era. We need to get farmers to plant trees and create wetlands to restore what was once a balance, but which is dangerously close to being a natural disaster. I am ashamed that the Ontario environment relative to that across the lake in Michigan is so much deteriorated in relative terms over the last century.

We think nothing of the employment in furniture factories that once abounded in the province based on hardwoods that once abounded in the province. Where are those hardwood forests now, where are the many forest jobs that once were. Why were the trees not replanted to give a future to the rural communities.

It's not good enough to plant a few pine trees and claim that we are working on the environment, when we can see the run offs arriving in Grand Bend harbour from farms that prefer grass and lawns to trees. Where is the natural habitat going?

I am disturbed at how much the Ontario environment has deteriorated over the five decades that I have been away. Many of the large trees are gone without being replaced. Towns have put sewerage systems on small lakes that used to be full of natural life tadpoles, frogs and snakes in turn. The water runoff from farms has darkened the rivers and creeks to the point that they smell and remain brown and toxic long enough to kill natural life.

I expect a bit of radicalism from ordinary folk, but when a government institution accepts as normal something that is radical to the extreme, all my alarm bells start ringing and I get excited, full of worry for people nearby who are being taken for a costly ride by organizations that should know better, but apparently don't.

It's fashionable these days to get involved in environmental issues. I am very sure you would agree that the continuing substantive runoff from many farms is an indication that we in Ontario are not yet up to the task ahead.

Yours sincerely, AW Lake

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

> 

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Posted By RT LAKE to Wooooooh's Stream on 8/11/2010 09:04:00 AM

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends!  May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Time to dance!

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

Re: South Grand 'Zone 3' Sanitary Sewage Collection System

Dear Cindy!

Thank you for your very informative letter. I do appreciate your answering my message of concerns about how the local project has evolved and that it has a decadent life of it's own that is hitting many surprising extremes from my point of view. I would prefer that the province figure out it's sanitation issues within the provincial park's limits rather than expect a nearby locality to absorb such costs.

The local community should in turn figure out its own sanitation issues within guidelines that are established by the larger community. After all, the population of Grand Bend is very small being under 2,000 and from a map survey it's lagoons are much larger than towns with populations multiples it's size. In summer, the population grows, but the systems for each cottage absorb such expansion very well normally.

By making Grand Bend into a typical polluting town, one is using the popular language of growth and progress. Our reality, however, is that the temporary wealthy drive the price of homes here up so high that local residents cannot survive on the limited numbers of jobs that exist year round. By placing additional costs onto the local people, the province is driving out potential investment and it is not enough to say the province is investing in Grand Bend since government jobs and money here are not the answer to the location's needs. We need more sustainable investment that comes from more people looking after their own environments and taking personal responsibility for their home and local community environments.

Who counts the co2 that is being created from the concrete poured or the tarmac laid? Who weighs the vehicles that pour co2 into the airs above the roads that travel through the village? Are there no long term standards, or are there no effective agencies to examine these issues and participate in discussions around the world? What are you doing?

My overall concern is that there seems an absence of clear design in the environmental approach of the province that continues blindly down paths that are not sustainable over the longer term. No will exists to slow down the deterioration. Bad habits of environmental destruction continue. The consultants retained for the sewerage project seem to take a very partial view of the environment and local economy. The sewer needs to be placed in the wider context of the environment. What is good technology for a small rural community that has absentee residents most of the time?

I am reminded of Schumacher's phrase that small is beautiful. What appropriate technologies are there for the farmers who would drive lawn mowers rather than plant trees. They spend millions on grass fertilizers and weed killers, but don't plant trees. Golf courses abound without lakes and tall trees. Swathes of land are cleared of trees and topsoil, bulldozing is a hobby of local employment for semi-skilled people who should be doing carpentry and working in furniture factories or making and installing affordable hardwood flooring in every home rather than manufacturing with chemicals for artificial fabrics that pollute and cause cancer.

Although we have trees, we need many more spaces for tree planting. We need to restore the forest not take it down, bulldoze and pore yet more concrete and build more second homes for those who drive ever larger vehicles and have a mindset of a oil guzzling era. We need to get farmers to plant trees and create wetlands to restore what was once a balance, but which is dangerously close to being a natural disaster. I am ashamed that the Ontario environment relative to that across the lake in Michigan is so much deteriorated in relative terms over the last century.

We think nothing of the employment in furniture factories that once abounded in the province based on hardwoods that once abounded in the province. Where are those hardwood forests now, where are the many forest jobs that once were. Why were the trees not replanted to give a future to the rural communities.

It's not good enough to plant a few pine trees and claim that we are working on the environment, when we can see the run offs arriving in Grand Bend harbour from farms that prefer grass and lawns to trees. Where is the natural habitat going?

I am disturbed at how much the Ontario environment has deteriorated over the five decades that I have been away. Many of the large trees are gone without being replaced. Towns have put sewerage systems on small lakes that used to be full of natural life tadpoles, frogs and snakes in turn. The water runoff from farms has darkened the rivers and creeks to the point that they smell and remain brown and toxic long enough to kill natural life.

I expect a bit of radicalism from ordinary folk, but when a government institution accepts as normal something that is radical to the extreme, all my alarm bells start ringing and I get excited, full of worry for people nearby who are being taken for a costly ride by organizations that should know better, but apparently don't.

It's fashionable these days to get involved in environmental issues. I am very sure you would agree that the continuing substantive runoff from many farms is an indication that we in Ontario are not yet up to the task ahead.

Yours sincerely, AW Lake

Will ye no think kindly on those who would be your friends! May the sun shine with your thoughts, today, and happiness grow in your heart! May you allow yourself some peace of mind.

>