Yahoo Finance Community protest over Gold Bar sewer line plan prompts council to get more involved
Sewer lines under the City of Edmonton will be less invisible in coming years after city councillors agreed Monday that sewage-related decisions should be more transparent.
City council will have more authority on major sewer projects, like the proposed re-routing of the South Edmonton Sanitary Sewer trunk line to the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant from a regional facility to the north.
Council's executive committee accepted the recommendation for improved oversight Monday.
It means the decision to send the sewer line to Gold Bar is on hold.
Mayor Don Iveson noted that previous decisions on sewer lines were made by the sanitary services committee, which is made up of city administration and industry representatives.
"This will allow for much more robust public engagement and ultimately more political oversight over something that was previously handled a little bit more behind closed doors," Iveson said.
Coun. Ben Henderson said the new model will give council a say and the public more opportunity to give input on potential changes.
"It will also allow the public to weigh in when some of these larger decisions are made in the future that are going to have impact on some neighbourhoods," Henderson said.
The new council oversight is welcome news to the Gold Bar Park Alliance. The group has been challenging a 2017 committee decision to re-route the south Edmonton sewer line to the Gold Bar plant, instead of routing it to the Alberta Capital Region Wastewater treatment facility near Fort Saskatchewan.
Jim Rickett with the Gold Bar Park Alliance is pleased that councillors have agreed to more transparency.
"Those decisions are so important to ensure that routing of sanitary sewage trunk lines will be made by the citizens of Edmonton through our elected city council representatives," Rickett said.
The community league boards of Capilano, Beverly Heights, Rundle Heights, Highlands, Bellevue and Gold Bar have been pushing the city to have more authority on such decisions.
Residents are concerned the increased sewer activity would create odour, noise and traffic as well as compromise the recreational use of the parkland.
Rickett said the community was shocked when they heard about the decision in 2018 and learned that city council had no apparent knowledge of it.
"We met with city councillors and we heard from them they also had no awareness, input or approval of such an impactful decision," Rickett said.
The Alberta Capital Region facility is ideally located away from residential areas, he said.
"And [it] has a very large amount of land already within their existing fence line and correctly zoned as public utilities to ensure that will protect the future of our river valley parkland for many, many generations to come."
Henderson said the decision on where the line will eventually end is likely to be made later.
With new technologies, changes in weather, water flow and environmental regulations, it's better to wait, he suggested.
"We could make the decision today and just have to revisit it in eight, nine, 10 years from now, which is not a good use of the public's time."
In 1998, the city created a 75-year plan for sewer lines for new land developments within the city.
