Tap water seems to disappear, swirling rapidly down pipes into a dark and cavernous underground world. No matter how filthy, it always returns clean from the faucet.
But wastewater and the chemicals involved in everyday household and industrial processes don’t just vanish. In Bellingham, wastewater chemicals end up either in a septic tank or in the wastewater treatment plant. In Victoria, British Columbia, however, the majority of the wastewater ends up in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, almost entirely untreated. While the Post Point Pollution Control Plant in Bellingham runs wastewater through three treatment processes, Victoria’s Clover Point and Macaulay Point outfall pipes discharge raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and so far the city has no plan to stop it.
Near the ferry docks in Old Fairhaven, the Post Point Pollution Control Plant is out of sight from the main road. Beyond the entrance, a variety of awards hang on the wall. The plant received an outstanding performance award for exemplary effort from the Washington State Department of Ecology every year from 1995 to 1998 and again in 2002.
Larry Bateman, 13-year operations supervisor for the plant, said the plant always has been committed to water quality.
"We stress doing the very best we can to protect the environment," Bateman said. "We do a very good job, but we’re looking for ways to do it better."
The plant serves 85,000 people and a few small industries in Bellingham through 250 miles of sewer collection mains, according to a pamphlet provided to Post Point visitors. Bateman said the plant has the capacity to serve a population of 16.1 million.
Leslie Higginson, a lab analyst at Post Point, is one staff member who works to ensure the plant has the least possible negative impact on the environment. Higginson and other lab workers test the effluent, or end product of the plant, to make sure the treatment plant is working effectively.
"Because we don’t have a lot of big industries, we don’t see a lot of toxic chemicals in our effluent," Higginson said. "It’s pretty clean waste if you want to look at it that way."
Post Point uses preliminary, primary and secondary sewage treatment processes, each with a higher degree of cleansing and disinfection.
Across Puget Sound from Bellingham, the city of Victoria, B.C. discharges 129.4 billion gallons of raw sewage into coastal waters each year, according to the Sierra Legal Defense Fund. Two large sewage outfall pipes at Macaulay Point and Clover Point serve approximately 200,000 people in the city. Each outfall pipe is almost half a mile out to sea and roughly 200 feet below the surface of the water. The pipes are outfitted with a screen that filters out any solid objects larger than 6 millimeters, or about one quarter of an inch, said Laura Taylor, manager of scientific programs for the Capital Regional District, of which Victoria is a municipal member. Taylor has been working for the district since 1991 and is part of the team that monitors the sewage outfalls.
Despite public uproar about the sewage being "dumped" into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, no plans exist to change the system, Taylor said. However, the CRD has made an effort to monitor the chemicals discharged into the surrounding environment.
"We monitor the sewage for over 200 compounds," Taylor said. "Some that we do detect are heavy metals and some of the breakdown products of fossil fuels."
Dusan Markovic is a Victoria resident who studied the outfall areas for his master’s degree at Royal Roads University. According to his study, among the most harmful chemicals contained in the Victoria sludge are chlorinated hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and heavy metals such as copper, chromium and zinc.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, chlorinated hydrocarbons are chemicals found in some pesticides that do not readily break down in the environment and can bioaccumulate in the food chain.
PCBs are known to cause cancer in animals and have negative effects on their reproductive abilities, immune systems, neurological development, and nervous systems. The EPA also warns that similar health risks might occur in humans exposed to PCBs.
Although organisms require copper, chromium and zinc elements for normal function, excess of these chemicals can cause distress in marine organisms ranging from behavioral changes to death, according to Markovic’s study.
"(The CRD) monitors the sea floor on an annual basis," Taylor said. "The approach we take is that the level of treatment of the sewage is dictated by the environment’s response."
The CRD did not state what response would cause it to change the level of treatment.
It is important for the wastewater to be carefully treated, said Christianne Wilhelmson, clean air and water coordinator for the Georgia Strait Alliance. The organization is devoted to improving the environmental conditions in the Strait of Georgia, a body of water on the east coast of Vancouver Island and between the United States and Canada. One of the main issues the group wants to change is the condition of Victoria’s sewage outfall, which affects both the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Georgia Strait.
"The biggest problem is that there is an assumption that you can dump waste and expect the environment to deal with it," Wilhelmson said. "The reality is that there is so much pollution in our world and some of it is so hard for us to do anything about. This is something we can do something about. We don’t have to be polluting our waters with sewage."
Debate concerning the outfall is not confined to Canada. The outfall’s proximity to Puget Sound is troubling to the Washington State Department of Ecology, said Kevin Fitzpatrick, the Northwest water quality program section manager.
"(The CRD’s) idea is that it is a deep water outfall and that there is dilution happening in the straits," Fitzpatrick said. "There’s a lot of rapid mixture, but really all that raw sewage is going to be confined in the Puget Sound, not into open ocean."
The technologies to make wastewater safer for the environment are available and are implemented at Post Point. But the Clover Point and Macaulay Point outfalls remain Victoria’s main treatment. Wilhelmson said he suspects a budget issue is to blame.
A sewage treament plant that could provide secondary treatment would cost an estimated $200 million to $400 million. But Taylor said providing secondary treatment is not a priority for the CRD.
The CRD has more pressing environmental problems. Taylor said she doubts whether sewage treatment ever solves the problems of chemical contamination.
"Suppose you’re concerned about mercury in sewage — secondary treatment does not treat mercury," Taylor said. "The mercury goes into the sludge and it doesn’t disappear. ‘Treatment’ is a misnomer. People think that a secondary treatment plant produces clean water and solves all the problems, but it doesn’t."
Batemen said he disagreed with Taylor’s statement because all sludge is removed from the effluent during secondary treatment at Post Point,mercury included.
The issue of sewage treatment, Wilhelmson said, has been on the table in British Columbia for more than 30 years. Meanwhile, more raw and untreated sewage accumulates in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Georgia Strait.
"We are contaminating the ocean and not doing anything to stop that," Wilhelmson said. "It’s time for us to hear voices. We’re all part of this community. We share these waters. Hopefully people will raise their voices and make their opinions heard."