Sewage action plan stinks – stop the spills
- Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The year 2009 could very well be landmarked as Ottawa’s “year of sewage”, or equally as upsetting, “a very bad year for the river”. So far this year, more than 800 million litres of untreated sewage has overflowed from city pipes into the Ottawa River. We shattered records for total rainfall and total number of rain events. Local news networks are buzzing with back-to-back reports of overflows, floods, spills, faulty regulators, beach closures and aging infrastructure. City Councillors are landing on either side of the issue – standing to defend an existing sewage plan, calling for swift action, or denying that we even have a sewage problem. Even the province is weighing in, criticizing Ottawa for its lack of action. At the centre of the issue is a heated debate over allowing our river – our drinking water source – to be a dumping ground for our sewage. These days sewage is a toxic cocktail; a mix of nutrients and thousands of chemicals, many of them know toxic compounds. The River does not “take care” of this waste – it carries it downstream to the next community and transfers many of the harmful chemicals to fish, frogs, birds, belugas and humans.
We’re not prepared for today, or tomorrow.
Climate change modellers have predicted a shift in our weather patterns, calling for more intense storms in the Ottawa Valley (this means a greater amount of rain falling within a shorter period of time). July, in my books, was a textbook example of their predictions, and could very well be a sample of what we can expect in the future . Ottawa’s storm and waste water systems were designed for yesterday’s needs, and plans for the future lack acceptance of changing weather patterns, and increased use of a wide range of toxic chemicals.
The City of Ottawa has tabled a plan to reduce combined overflows by an estimated 60% – the minimum requirement to meet provincial Ministry of Environment (MOE) guidelines. The plan, which includes substantial infrastructure upgrades, is to be implemented over the next 5 years. I would like to emphasize that the pressure to reduce these combined sewer overflows is coming from elected officials and the public, not from our regulators. This practice of spilling untreated sewage in our river has been happening for decades, yet little action has been taken by our regulators to put an end to it.
At the federal level, a new joint wastewater strategy (recently announced by Environment Minister, Jim Prentice) will set performance benchmarks, timelines and monitoring and reporting requirements for Canadian wastewater facilities. The plan is the result of much needed research and consultations that have taken place across Canada over the past five years or so. The new regulations are due to be released in draft form in December 2009 , yet the plan is expected to take an estimated 30 years to fully implement.
Our existing infrastructure is decades out-of-date and is crippled by continued overflows, leaks and malfunctions. We’re already trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions, and answers to today’s problems are another 30 years away? 30 years from now, we’ll be using another 3 decade old solution. We need to think and act beyond the 100-year-old solutions to waste management that we cannot seem to let go of.
Who’s in charge?
The Ottawa River has a unique gift – a shared boundary between many municipalities and two provinces. Navigating guidelines between multiple governing bodies (municipal, provincial and federal) can be difficult at best. Add in a lack of communication, no collaboration and no common plan, and we have a system designed to fail.
Our federal government is lacking vision and has made no progress on a national water strategy. Our provincial regulators continue to turn a blind eye to the cumulative amounts of sewage being dumped into the Ottawa River, and they are offering no incentives for municipalities to do better. The City of Ottawa (as well as other municipalities on the river) is doing the bare minimum to “treat” our sewage, trying at all costs to keep the regulators off their doorstep.
Our elected officials are pointing fingers – some even denying that we need to act at all. All the while, we continue to dump enormous amounts of sewage and toxic substances (from waste water) into our river and into our drinking water source.
Clearly, we’re lacking leadership, common priorities and a more sustainable plan for managing our waste.
We can’t wait any longer.
Ongoing sewage spills are serious public and river health issues. This year alone, Ottawa has dumped nearly a billion litres of untreated sewage into the Ottawa River. Our beaches were closed because of high bacteria (E.coli) counts, and the city’s chief medical officer advised against having human contact with the river because of potential human health risks. In Ottawa, Westboro and Petrie Island beaches have been closed over 40% of the summer, an indicator that we are not meeting Provincial guidelines designed to protect our water resources. The river itself has been exposed to significant ecological risks, and industries (including recreation) are experiencing economic losses from these events. Confidence in the health of the river is falling.
We should all be demanding answers: Where are the regulators? How can this be allowed to continue? What about public health and the health of our river?
A better plan:
STOP PUTTING OUR WASTE IN THE RIVER
Spilling sewage into the river from combined sewer overflows is preventable. The process of separating our storm and sewage systems is costly, but necessary. A partial plan is not acceptable. Large amounts of toxic substances should not be dumped into our drinking water source, and our infrastructure should support that requirement. Municipalities investing in infrastructure upgrades should build waste management facilities that do not release sewage (raw or treated) into our drinking water source.
PRACTICE LOW IMPACT DEVELOPMENT
We cannot continue to allow status quo development in areas where the infrastructure cannot handle it. City systems, in some areas, are over capacity and cannot meet existing residential, commercial and industrial needs, yet we continue to allow new construction. We will never solve our water quality problems with end of pipe solutions alone – we must begin to practice low impact development and implement green infrastructure techniques from this day on. Public health and the ecological health of our rivers must take priority over industry and economic gains.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
Cities need to become self-sufficient and develop regional solutions for managing their waste. This includes not polluting a river that we all share – municipalities and communities downstream should not be left to deal with our toxic waste.
The Ottawa River is not a dumping ground. We need to stop releasing sewage and toxic waste into our river (and our drinking water source). And we need to stop NOW, not later. We all benefit from a clean and healthy river.
Sincerely,
Meredith Brown, Executive Director and Ottawa Riverkeeper
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