Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
The city has hired a former waste water manager from Toronto to investigate the massive raw sewage spill into the Ottawa River in August 2006.
Mike Price will be assisting city manager Kent Kirkpatrick with his investigation of the spill, which sent a billion litres of raw sewage into the river after a sewer gate jammed and went undetected for two weeks.
In a memo to council, Kirkpatrick said Price “possesses the prerequisite technical expertise, as well as the organizational and public sector experience required to complete a rigorous review within a short timeframe.”
Price will “determine whether the city effectively fulfilled its regulatory compliance requirements at the time.”
One city employee has been fired after he admitted he didn’t alert the provincial Ministry of the Environment when he said he had.
The review will determine what changes are needed to ensure a similar incident doesn’t happen again.
Kirkpatrick said Price will verify all of the information that was known at the time of the spill and review what actions were taken and why.
The city’s auditor general, the MOE and the federal government have also launched investigations into the spill. Price’s findings will be made available to the auditor, who is expected to release his report in September. The AG’s review will include an examination of the province’s response and whether it followed its own policies and regulations.
(C) Ottawa Sun