If you’ve ever thought it would be fun to serve on the Oak Harbor City Council, think again. The council in beginning the process of choosing a site for a new sewer plant which is tentatively scheduled to be operating in about five years.

There is no more difficult job in local public life than locating a sewer plant.

Oak Harbor presently has two sewer facilities. A treatment plant is located on the waterfront smack in the middle of Windjammer Park. A lagoon system taken over from the Navy is in Crescent Harbor, susceptible to tidal flooding and smack in the middle of a salmon restoration area.

Oak Harbor’s dream of attracting significantly more tourists will never become reality if the sewer plant eye-and-nose-sore remains on the waterfront, and the lagoon site promises to be a continuing and expensive environmental headache.

In short, a better site is needed.

The island’s two other, much smaller, towns have dealt successfully with this problem. Coupeville’s small sewer plant is located away from the downtown core but is still on the waterfront. A park and recreational boat launch facility enhance the site and the odor is seldom a factor. Langley took a better albeit more expensive approach, moving its sewer plant from downtown to a wooded, relatively unpopulated area about a half mile out of town. Visitors to Langley don’t even know the town has a sewer plant.

Oak Harbor should try to follow the Langley example, placing the new sewer plant in an upland area well away from the waterfront. The city and Navy both own property that might be suitable, but there is no place that won’t raise vehement objections from some citizens.

At the same time, costs must be controlled so the plant can’t be located too far away. But priority one must be to get the sewer facilities away from prime waterfront property. Otherwise, Oak Harbor’s future will never be as bright as it should be.