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Canada’s Environment Minister John Baird is expected to announce this afternoon that his department has launched its own investigation into the City of Ottawa’s massive sewage spill.
Sources are telling the ottawasun.com that the government is looking into potential violations under the federal Fisheries Act. Ottawasun.com has also learned that Carleton-Mississippi Mills Conservative MPP Norm Sterling, who is a former provincial environment minister under the Mike Harris government in the 1990s, is also calling for a public inquiry into the spill.
The city supervisor who lied about reporting a massive sewage spill to the province’s environment ministry was fired yesterday. Jean-Pierre Boisseau learned his fate yesterday morning during a meeting with senior management at City Hall.
From Aug. 1, 2006 to Aug. 15, 2006, 960,000 cubic metres of raw sewage spilled into the Ottawa River after a sewer gate jammed. A maintenance worker discovered the problem sometime in the afternoon of Aug. 15, but the ministry wasn’t informed until May 2007.
The federal investigation is the latest in a series of investigation including an announcement earlier this week from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment that its investigations and enforcment branch is also looking into the matter.
Petrie Island Beach, which is located downstream from the spill and three wastewater treatment facilities, was closed 45 times in the summer of 2006 after high levels of E. coli were recorded.
Ottawa Sun