Editor’s note: A lot of communities have problems with poop. The Lower Mainland has ‘aging and poorly engineered or maintained sewers’ that ‘are increasingly at risk of overflowing with raw sewage due to increased demand and more intense rainstorms.’ This is a more individual matter on Cortes and Quadra Islands. However one of the contributing factors to Hague Lake’s algae blooms in 2014 and 15 was leakage from some of the aging septic systems on the shore. A number of articles on the net suggest septic tanks can last 20 – 40 years, depending on how they are maintained. This suggests that a lot of older houses may need to have their septic systems (and tanks) checked and possibly replaced. On Cortes Island, 51% of the houses were built sometime prior to the end of 1990 and 70% before December 31, 2000. The percentage is higher in Area C: 61% and 83%, respectively.

By Sidney Coles, Capital Daily, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Poop and the question of what to do with it seems to be a singularly contentious issue for the CRD and one that has been floating around, in one form or another, for years. It was only in 2017 that Victoria finally decided to stop dumping its raw sewage into the waters off its coast and build the $1B sewage treatment plant at McLoughlin Point. Now, it has a new problem: What to do with all of the bio-waste that is currently accumulating in its Saanich Hartland landfill?