Ongoing Concerns with Cranbrook’s Waste Water Treatment

Most residents of Cranbrook know by now that our City was required to substantially upgrade its Waste Water System after much denial and defense for several years from the council of the day which included current Councillors Wavrecan, Davis, Schatschneider and Mayor Manjak as well as past Councillors Gordon, Mollison and past Mayor Priest. The original cost for the upgrades was estimated at $14.5 million to bring the system into compliance. The cost now stands at approximately $26 million and the upgrades are still not complete. For the City to label our spray irrigation system as “Cutting Edge” is a gross overstatement in our opinion.

Of ongoing and major concern to some are ongoing practices and the results evident in the latest available City’s Annual Report from 2010.

· Basic fresh water requirements for cattle watering are not being met.
Note Table B8 (link below): this shows the Microbiological Parameters for just four of the many Cattle Watering Ponds. It is truly upsetting that the water is up to 2,000 times over the accepted standards for watering cattle. (The microbiological parameters include counts of fecal coliform, E. Coli and Enterococci) Why are we continuing to recycle this level of contamination back into our food chain? Why hasn’t the City provided fresh water as ordered by Ministry of Environment? In the past month the City was observed, and photographed, continuing to actively spray effluent into these cattle watering holes. Excess effluent from another pivot was forming an overland stream of effluent, which was flowing into yet another of the cattle water sources.

· Effluent continues to be ‘lost’.
Note on page 9 the City reports “losing” another 580,000 + cubic metres of our effluent over the course of last year. Is this volume continuing to leak out of Storage Pond #2 as was shown to be happening at the Environmental Appeal Hearing? Where is this ‘lost’ effluent ending up? This is equivalent to the City losing 67 days of daily effluent created by the people living in the city boundaries.

· Also, it’s worth noting that contamination is still appearing in Turtle Pond, situated on Crown Land, even though the City was ordered to fill in the ditch that directed excess effluent into this sensitive wildlife pond.

Please refer to the City of Cranbrook’s Annual 2010 Report at the Public Library, or online at:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35978265/Cranbrook%20Spray%20Irrigation%20Annual%20Report%202010_FINAL2.pdf

Our last post on this topic and more information can be read at:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5780805355096014669&postID=4303417005080592762

and our posts in January 2011:
http://livablecranbrook.blogspot.com/2011/01/cranbrooks-waste-water-management.html
http://livablecranbrook.blogspot.com/2011/01/cranbrooks-spray-irrigation-upgrades.html

November 2010:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5780805355096014669&postID=2874539017412472644