VICTORIA - After decades of debate and years of bickering, the Capital Regional District has moved a big step closer to secondary sewage treatment.

Regional mayors and councilors have finally voted to go ahead with the biggest, most expensive infrastructure project on Vancouver Island.

But there's a key battle over where to put the plants.  

The game-plan the CRD will now send to the provincial and federal governments; in exchange for a third each in funding; specify McLaughlin Point in Esquimalt, and the so-called "Haro Woods", land that borders Finnerty and Arbutus roads in east Saanich.

The Haro Woods site will not be popular, but CRD directors say they have their reasons.

Those reasons have everything to do with federal dollars. With hundreds of millions in infrastructure cash threatening to dry up, the CRD says it had to make a decision fast.

To qualify for the funds, directors had to pick land either owned or controlled by the CRD.

The district says it could still move a Saanich plant to UVic, and the Esquimalt plant to an industrial site in Victoria. But the landowners would have to agree.