Re: ERO 019-6708, Ministry…

Re: ERO 019-6708, Ministry Reference Number 5619-CN5RQZ

I do not reside close to the proposed dumping site, however, I have multiple concerns in general with this proposal as well as any others seeking to dump human waste on vacant land. I believe there will be health risks introduced which will be expensive to mitigate with costs falling to the rural residents and not the applicant(s) or the government.

There are already concerns and sufficient evidence that treated output released from sewage treatment plants contains residual drugs, chemicals, viruses which have negative impacts to aquatic life downstream. This proposal has high volumes of raw human waste pumped directly onto vacant land. There is almost no opportunity for any ground filtration to occur before the sewage mixes with ground water sources. In addition, any ground filtration would leave the land unfit for agricultural, residential or wildlife purposes for many decades into the future.

There are already concerns and evidence with livestock waste run-off having negative impacts to ground water sources, streams, lakes. Livestock waste is spread before a crop is planted in low concentrations, i.e. over hundred of hectares. This is very different from the proposal in question for dumping human waste where the intent is to dump high volumes of waste continuously throughout the year onto a very small vacant piece of land with no crops.

In summary, the risks from dumping human waste onto vacant land is far too high and should not be done, not even on a small scale.