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URGENT NOTICE -- ANNACIS ISLAND SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT

We need letters of concern re the fate of the Fraser, letters asking for a public hearing, letters indicating you care enough to pay the extra costs of secondary treatment (less than the cost of the family newspaper). Letters should be directed to Mr. B.E. Marr, Chairman of the Pollution Control Board, Parliament Buildings, Victoria and need to be received by him before February 12, 1974 when the Board is meeting and a policy re Annacis is on the agenda.

FACTS RE ANNACIS ISLAND SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT:

Location is downstream from New Westminster with outflow into the South Arm of the Fraser River.

Capacity in the initial phase is approximately 60 million gallons per day of domestic sewage and industrial waste

Area Served is extremely large compared to other plants and includes New Westminster, Burnaby, Surrey, Coquitlan, Port Coquitlam, etc.

Much of this area is now served by septic tanks.

Treatment: After the August/72 election there was renewed protest re Annacis having only primary treatment which means that 70% of the materials that rob the Fraser of its life-giving oxygen still remain in the effluent. The Hon. Robert Williams responded to this concern by appointing a committee of M.L.A.°s (Harold Steves, Carl Liden and Colin Gableman) to investigate the adequacy of proposed treatment

for the Annacis plant. After meetings with Greater Vancouver Regional

District sewage staff, organizations and citizens, this committee recommended

that secondary sewage treatment be required at Annacis and the Minister so

ordered in February/73. On the advice of Mr. Frank Bunnell (head of the dist- rict's sewage and drainage staff), the Greater Vancouver Regional Board appealed the Ministerial order that required secondary treatment at Annacis. This appeal has been pending for almost a year and is now coming up for consideration by the Pollution Control Board under its new chairman who was not a member of the

Board and, judging by a letter we have just received, has no appreciation of

the very considerable and coneistent protest there has been re Annacis.

Annacis is not just a Lower Mainland problem. The salmon industry pumps an estimated $100. million per year into the B.C. economy and indications are that this may double in the next few years IF we protect the Fraser estuary. There are already two primary treatment plants emptying into the estuary that is nursery for an estimated billion fingerling and millions of wildlife (Iona plant capacity 66 million gallons per day and the Gilbert Road plant approx. B mad). There is a considerable body of informed cpinion that supports second- ary treatment at Annacis. After months of study by his Vancouver staff, the Hon. Jack Davis stated on March 1971 (re sewage disposal in the Fraser River estuary) "We must plan, not only for primary treatment of all municipal Sewage by 1975 but secondary treatment by 1977."

The Fraser River mothers one of the last, if not the last great fish run in this wounded old world of ours. The GVRD were required to have a study made re water quality of the Fraser before Annacis goes into operation. This stucy was undertaken by B.C. Research and is now completed and being written up. It would seem irresponsible to make a decision on Annacis before this study is

MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR LETTER TO VICTORIA BEFORE FEBRUARY 12th. or churches to join in this effort and Lois Boyce, Executive Director

made public. Invite your friends or organizations they too can become a “FRASER SAVER”. / Ie thy ie

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