Some of the locals have dubbed it Gull Row and even the mayor thinks it’s a blight on the town’s image.
Now there are concerns being raised about whether or not Lark Harbour will see more highly visible sewer outfalls like the new one jutting out into the inner harbour right in the middle of town.
In fact, with a future phase of the town’s major water and sewer project planning to eventually head out Little Port Road, some are worried a sewer outfall will eventually be installed in scenic Bottle Cove near the end of that road.
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Dennis Barrett is among those who want answers as to why there is now an unsightly sewer outfall spewing its effluent in a relatively shallow part of the harbour and whether there are any plans to do something similar to Bottle Cove.
Barrett said the problem with the outfall is far bigger than the looks of it. He said the waste coming out of it is being deposited too close to the adjacent mudflats of the Big Brook estuary.
He said there isn’t enough tidal movement in the area to properly flush away what comes out of the sewer pipe and some of it is bound to end up on the mudflats or on shoals on the other side of the inner harbour.
He said the potential for offensive odours will be worsened during the hotter months of the year.
“I don’t think that little cove can handle that kind of effluent being pumped into the harbour,” said Barrett. “It’s going to go up on the mudflats and, when the sun hits it, I wouldn’t want to be downwind of it in any direction.”
He also doesn’t think the rock berm covering the outfall pipe will last long after it’s been exposed to a few storms.
The outfall is directly across the street from St. James All-Grade School and St. James Anglican Church, a regular stop for motor coaches full of tourists in the summertime.
“They’ll be coming out of the church after having a bite to eat and looking down at a cesspit,” said Barrett.
Mayor Ria MacDonald is not at all pleased with the new outfall either. She said the project was already well underway when the current council took office. According to MacDonald, the current council never made any changes to the work that had been planned, assuming what had been approved so far was all going to be fine.
“I can’t speak for everybody on council, but I don’t like how it looks,” she said. “If that’s how they had to do it, I wish they would have buried it deeper and hid it a little bit better. The engineers are supposed to know what they are doing.”
Esthetics aside, MacDonald said she is only now being made aware of the concerns the harbour may not have the capacity to adequately flush the effluent that will be pumped into it.
The issue will be discussed by council, but MacDonald said any changes — if they are required and if they are even possible at this stage — will depend on approvals from the provincial government.
“When it comes to Gull Row, the Department of Environment approved it, so I’m going to assume they know what they’re doing,” she said.
The original plans, according to documents filed with the provincial government for environmental assessment, called for a total of five sewer outfalls. There is another one located near the Canadian Coast Guard station.
The water and sewer project involves providing these services to every property in town. Properties east of the controversial outfall, along Main Road and on to the area of town known locally as Down Below, will be done in future phases.
Another phase will involve providing water and sewer services to homes along Little Port Road out toward Bottle Cove and Little Port.
MacDonald said she doesn’t know where the locations of any other outfalls will be. She added it’s unlikely council will approve of any more like Gull Row, which is proving to be popular only among the gulls and occasional eagle looking for sustenance from the waste.
“I do know that council doesn’t want something like that going in Bottle Cove,” she said. “For me, personally, it’s a sticking point. I don’t want to ruin Bottle Cove and I don’t want to ruin Lark Harbour any more than it is.”
Barrett, too, said he had placed his trust in the government and the engineers who developed the project. He said artistic renderings of what the outfall was going to look like would have likely caused enough uproar for the plans to have been modified.
His biggest concern is what is going to happen with the rest of the project and how much influence town council will have over how the work is to proceed from here. He says the only sensible location for any outfalls is out past the government wharf in the easternmost edge of town, where the water is deeper and better able to flush away the effluent.
“The scary thing is, the town is only half done,” said Barrett. “Where will the next two outfalls be? What are they going to do next to totally destroy that little harbour?”
While the phase that will include the Bottle Cove area is still years away, Barrett doesn’t think it will be feasible to pipe effluent from the end of Little Port Road back toward Lark Harbour. He figures Bottle Cove will eventually become the only option for one of the outfalls.
Bottle Cove is not just a pretty spot for local residents. Folks from all over the region regularly head to Bottle Cove, especially in summer, to enjoy the beach, hiking trails and spectacular vistas.
Barrett has vowed to make sure Bottle Cove and Lark Harbour’s tourism potential in general is not compromised any further by the town’s water and sewer project.
“If I had gotten involved with this two years ago, I guarantee this mess would not be out across the mudflats of Big Brook,” he said. “I’m not trusting anybody now. I’m your worst nightmare. I’m here and I’m staying on it until this is done.”
The Western Star asked former mayor John Parsons for an interview. He declined, but, in an email in which he attached the project’s original environmental assessment registration document from 2011, he said the locations of the five sewer outfalls were not known even back then.
“At this point, it is pure speculation that there will be a sewer outfall in world-renowned Bottle Cove,” Parsons wrote in the email. “I cannot imagine that the current or any other council would sign off on that.”
