GRAND BEND — South Huron held the first of two planned public information meetings regarding the Grand Bend Area Sewage Collection System Sept. 1 in Grand Bend.

The open house meeting at St. John's By the Lake Anglican Church was a chance for ratepayers to learn and ask about the approximately $25,900,000 project to be split among the municipalities of South Huron, Bluewater and Lambton Shores. A federal-provincial grant will cover two thirds of the first $21 million of the project, with South Huron on the hook for about $3.5 million after the grant, according to chief administrative officer Roy Hardy.

The project involves a sewage treatment plant and a collection system. Hardy said the project engineers are gathering information and doing testing along the beach and Highway 21.  

Each involved municipality is undergoing its own environmental assessment (EA), and Hardy said South Huron is now in the phase where it is taking public input. He said once tenders come back to the respective municipalities, the new councils will be in place and will make the ultimate decisions on the project's future.

Hardy said a whole range of options could come out of the public input phase, and a second public information meeting next spring will present the preferred options for the project.

South Huron's portion of the project has been divided into three zones:
o Zone 2 includes lands along the South Huron lakeshore from Highway 83 to the Lambton Shores boundary near Grand Bend.
o Zone 2B is the area along the south side of Highway 83 including Dashwood.
o Zone 2C is the area in the western section of South Huron bounded by Mollard Line, Corbett Line, Crediton Road and Gore Road.

Project manager Dave Hicknell of Gamsby and Mannerow Engineers said 78 people signed in to the meeting and his next step will be reviewing the comments he receives from the public.

South Huron operations manager Don Giberson said while members of the public have expressed concern, the feedback received at last week's meeting was mainly positive.

He said one of the concerns was how large the rural study area for the sewer project appears. Giberson stressed the study area map shows the absolute limits of the project. He said some areas, like the Grand Bend Motorplex and Pickling Onion Group are already serviced. He added that a couple of properties in the area have requested sanitary service "but this doesn't mean the municipality is looking at putting sewers up and down all these roads. That's not the intent."

And regarding Dashwood, Giberson said servicing Dashwood with sanitary sewers is too expensive to make the project viable in that village.

"It's just too expensive per property," he explained. "We need to look at other solutions for Dashwood . . . Servicing Dashwood does not look very promising."

He continued, "You have to have cost-effective services for these small villages, and what we see here (Dashwood), I don't see it."

Giberson said South Huron's main focus will be along the lakeshore.

He said South Huron sees the project in three phases:
The first is the aforementioned new treatment plant, which will be constructed on Mollard Line southeast of Grand Bend, the current location of the lagoons. Giberson said that portion of the project should go to tender in January, with a spring construction start. People who benefit from the plant, including Grand Cove residents, will receive a bill for their portion of the plant.

The second phase of the project is a trunk sewer from the treatment plant up to Bluewater. Giberson said the need for such a trunk sewer has to be proven in both the South Huron and Bluewater EA.

"We believe there is enough of a sewer issue along the lakeshore in Bluewater that their EA will prove the need for a trunk," Giberson said, explaining that Bluewater will need the trunk to get their sewage down through South Huron to the treatment plant.

"We want to partner with them," Giberson said of Bluewater. Once the trunk sewer is in, Giberson said local areas will have something to hook up to, which is the last phase.

The EA process will prove if there is a need in the cottage areas, Giberson said, adding that if there is no need, those areas won't be serviced.

"We want to really reassure people that it's through the EA process where you try to determine if these things are really necessary to be built. If they're not necessary, we're not building them."

Giberson wanted to stress that the three municipalities are working co-operatively "for the common good."

One dissatisfied resident at last week's meeting was sustainable development consultant Bill Jolliffe of the Grand Bend area who criticized the fact that there was no formal presentation at last week's meeting and it was simply set up as an "open house." He said he has "tremendous" concerns about the project and said the technology proposed for the sewage treatment plant is based on special interests and involves no forward thinking. He added the waste will be inadequately treated before it enters the lake. Hicknell said he has no reaction to Jolliffe's claim, explaining that "no alternatives have been selected without consulting the public first."

A second public information meeting is expected to be held in the spring.