Category Archives: Waste

Rivers & Oceans, Waste

Canada’s National Observer takes you on a sailing ship with an impossible mission

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada’s National Observer sent reporter Natasha Bulowski to B.C.’s remote central coast for a special expedition this month.

Teams of people are on B.C.’s central coast this week, facing the Sisyphean task of removing marine debris and garbage from remote islands. For every plastic bottle you pick up, there are at least five more buried under the mess of driftwood washed up on the shores. Ropes and nets are even worse: right when you think you’ve freed a section and are ready to move on, a flash of turquoise rope buried in the driftwood catches your eye and condemns you to another 15-minute to hour-long struggle — or “project” as the crew calls these monstrosities.

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Waste

Feasibility Studies for On-Island Composting Treatment Of Cortes Island Septic Wastes

The SRD will be carrying out the second step of a feasibility study to determine whether on-island compost treatment of Cortes Island’s septic wastes would be more beneficial than the current pump-out system, and could it be delivered at a cost comparable to setting up a conventional system. 

Cortes Island’s septic systems need to be cleaned out roughly every three years. This is currently done by a septic truck, which takes the wastes off-island. 

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Rivers & Oceans, Waste

The Island-wide 2024 Beach Clean-up on Cortes

The first truckload was filled over the roofline with beach debris. Sam Gibb drove into the Klahoose village shortly after 10:30 AM on Saturday. Alex Bernier, followed with a smaller load. Helen Hall and Autumn Barrett Morgan, two other members of the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI), were there to help them unload. Stephanie Valdal, Services Coordinator for the Comox Strathcona Waste Management Service, had come from Courtenay. The debris collected by Klahoose Aquaculture had not yet arrived. By the time the month long Cortes Island wide beach clean-up officially ended, on Sunday, there was a bin full of beach debris. This year’s clean-up was a collaborative initiative between Klahoose Aquaculture, FOCI, the Ocean Legacy Foundation and Comox Strathcona Waste Management Service.  

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Waste

Poop happens: the debate about waste management is serious

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?

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Communications, Housing, Indigenous Nations, Waste, Water

Mawhinney reviews 2023 in Area C and looks ahead to 2024

Editor’s note: Some activities that are of interest to Cortes listeners as well are: the fact the proposed SRD housing service is designed to be virtually cost neutral to the electorate and how Quadra ICAN is mapping that island’s aquifers and wetlands, as well as monitoring water levels in a number of wells. 

Robyn Mawhinney has learned a lot since she was elected Regional Director almost 14 months ago. As we enter into yet another new year, she gave her reflections of 2023 and what is ahead for Area C in the coming months.

“I’m really pleased that there are new avenues for having community voices heard and included in decision making,” she began.

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