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The City of Ottawa Has Been Slapped With Two Water Resources Act Charges for a 15-Day Sewage Spill Into the Ottawa River, and if the City Is Convicted, the Fines Could Range From a Minimum of $25,000 to a Maximum of $6 Million for Each Day.
After a two-month investigation into the August 2006 spill, the Ontario environment ministry acted yesterday. The city is accused of causing or permitting the discharge of material into the Ottawa River that could affect water quality and failing to report the spill to the ministry.
In a note to city council, the municipality’s chief lawyer, Rick O’Connor, said city representatives will contact the Crown to obtain disclosure of the case against the city as soon as possible. Mr. O’Connor also addressed concerns about possible fines and gave recent examples of municipalities being fined less than $200,000 for convictions on similar charges. Any fine would be determined by a justice of the peace.
Mayor Larry O’Brien said the charges, the result of just one of four investigations being conducted into the spill, were “expected,” and ordered a briefing for city council at its next meeting in late August.
He said the city is taking steps to reduce the amount of raw sewage that is routinely discharged into the Ottawa River, and he’s confident a similar incident won’t occur.
He also called on the provincial and federal governments to commit funds to help the city improve water quality in the river by keeping sewage out of it.
“We will continue our ongoing capital investments into improving our wastewater treatment and council looks forward to working with the federal and provincial governments to share the costs associated with protecting our waterways,” he said in a statement.
The federal government, through Environment Minister and Ottawa West-Nepean MP John Baird, has already committed $20 million to help clean up the river, but provincial officials have said the city will have to apply for funding.
Mr. Baird’s ministry is investigating the spill under the Fisheries Act, and an internal city management audit has already resulted in the firing of a municipal public works employee, Jean-Pierre Boisseau. The city’s auditor general is also looking into the matter.
The leak of 960,000 cubic metres of sewage occurred because a large swath of the city’s downtown core has combined sanitary and storm sewers, city officials have said. Under normal circumstances, the sewers carry their contents to the sewage treatment facility in Gloucester. But when it rains, the system is overwhelmed, and storm water and raw sewage are pumped into the Ottawa River.
An overflow pipe near 24 Sussex Drive got stuck open during a storm on July 31, 2006, and continued to leak raw sewage into the river until the problem was detected on Aug. 15 and stopped.
Municipal officials say Mr. Boisseau falsely said he had reported the incident to the province when it was detected, then lied to cover his tracks.
Municipal officials say the ministry was actually informed in May 2007 in a letter from Barrie King, a program manager in the city’s public works department. Two other top public works officials received copies of the letter at the time.
But the issue only came to the attention of upper city management, council, the health department and the public when Orléans Councillor Bob Monette was informed during a tour of the city’s sewage treatment plant in May.
(C) Ottawa Citizen