Pumping Station
Clover Point shows up a lot in my blog. It is firmly within my personal geography, and so gets my camera(s) pointed at and around it a lot. What I don’t normally show is evidence of the sewage works that are buried in the hill at the back of the point. Today, I am doing so.
It is not really a sewage treatment plant – I think there is some sterilising and blending and then it is just pumped, barely treated, out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca a mile or more offshore. The scientists that study such things, both the academics not beholden to the operators and the consultants paid by local government (who are the operators), say it is not a big deal for the environment due to dispersal and dilution in the strong tides and very large volumes of water. However, recently other levels of government have deemed things must be changed, after years of controversy. So, a sewage treatment system is about to begin construction, and this place will have a different function. I am told my property taxes may rise by seven or eight hundred dollars a year to help pay for it.
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These pictures show the walls that hold up the underground works and the barriers which prevent people from tripping over the edge to land broken on the asphalt below. I begin the post with a view from below of a vent structure, and end with the sunrise viewed from the top of the same place, which was what I pulled over to capture in the first place. The light was so nice on the rock walls, that I decided to photograph them too. I took brackets and processed these as HDR to deal with the dynamic range in the sunrise shots, and then left that setup because I knew I could get nice gritty black and white processing for the stone walls. I hope you approve of this choice.
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I will be separated from my computer from Friday afternoon through until Monday, so if you comment and don’t get a response, don’t fret. I will do so when I reconnect.
Canon 5D MkII, Canon 50mm/f1.4, ISO100, +/- 2.0 E.V., processed in Photomatix and Lightroom.
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burnt embers 
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Very nice treatment of a mundane subject.
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Thanks Joseph. Mundane is an excellent word for this subject, a kind one. The light was fantastic, which is of course the difference maker.
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Very nice texture on those walls. They do look very climbable, too, hence the sign, I guess!
: )
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There speaks a climber! The signs seem kind of unnecessary to me – anyone that is going to climb a wall like this must know that they could get hurt, or die, if they fell off. I guess common sense does not inhibit lawsuits, whereas signs can. Sadly.
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I like the texture of the walls. BTW, some friends of mine have a bluegrass band in Victoria; they call themselves the Clover Point Drifters, with reference to this same locale.
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Hi Vicki – nice story. I have heard of the Drifters, and even heard a bit of their music, though not live. I did not know the source of their name. Does Mr. Floatie play in the band? He is my favourite outcome of the controversy, though not someone I would invite to a party.
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Ha! I was just looking at their website, and listening to some of their music. They have the best email addresses on their Contacts page.
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They are very funny guys, and nary a pretentious bone to be found among any of them.
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That comes through loud and clear on the web site. They play well too which is icing on the cake, or is it the cake and the humour the icing? Anyway, thanks for reminding me of their existence.
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