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Ottawa is not the only city in the area spewing its sewage directly into the Ottawa River.
Gatineau also sends sewage into the river every time there is a heavy rainfall or the snow melts too quickly for its combined storm and sanitary sewers to handle.
Waste from older neighbourhoods between Aylmer and Buckingham doesn’t necessarily go to Gatineau’s sewage treatment plant on Notre-Dame and Campeau streets. Much of it flows into the river through 96 storm water outlets.
Quebec Ministry of Municipal Affairs records show that Gatineau released sewage into the Ottawa and La Lievre rivers 1,231 times in 2005. City staff don’t have any estimate of the amount of sewage that is dumped, but Quebec Ministry of Environment officials say river water quality meets most provincial standards.
Gatineau’s combined storm and sanitary sewers can handle up to three times the normal flow from rainfall, but when there is too much water, the excess water and sewage is directed automatically into the river rather than toward the city’s sewage treatment plant.
When asked how much sewage goes into the river, Gatineau officials said they didn’t know, even though the city employs a private firm to make weekly reports to the Quebec Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
Pascal Laplante, a spokesman for the City of Gatineau, said the city has 182 kilometres of combined storm and sanitary sewers and it would cost about $300 million to dig up city streets and separate them so that all sewage could be treated.
After Ottawa Councillor Diane Holmes sounded the alarm in November about increasing amounts of raw sewage being dumped in the river, city staff admitted that only 75 per cent of Ottawa’s sewage and storm water from a large section of downtown makes it to the municipality’s treatment centre.
The remainder—about 400,000 cubic metres a year—is dumped untreated into the Ottawa River in contravention of Ontario environment laws at five overflow sites in the downtown area, the city’s infrastructure manager, Alain Gonthier, said.
An Olympic-sized swimming pool holds about 2,500 cubic metres of water; an average-sized oil tanker ship holds about 25,000 cubic metres of fluid. This means the equivalent of 16 tankers or 160 Olympic-sized pools worth of Ottawa sewage and storm water a year is going untreated into the Ottawa River.
Jacques Nadeau, Gatineau’s environmental director, said each release of storm water and sewage on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River could be a few litres at a time or many cubic metres.
In the Aylmer, Hull and Gatineau sectors there are 78 points where sewage can flow directly into the river and in Buckingham and Masson-Angers there are 18 overflow pipes. Mr. Nadeau said sewage sometimes flows into the river when city workers must crawl into reservoirs to repair broken pumping equipment.
“The only thing that we know is that this overflow is allowed during heavy rain or when something breaks,” Mr. Nadeau said. “It will take a long time and a lot of money to fix the problem. Each year we separate the combined sewers a little bit at a time.
“Water quality isn’t affected by combined sewers except in the spring or maybe a little bit in the fall when there is heavy rain. The Ministry of Environment is always trying to reduce the flow going to the river to improve the water quality. If there was no overflow the quality of the river would be better.”
Jean-Pierre Beaumont, a spokesman for the Quebec Ministry of Environment, said the province does not monitor the flow of sewage into the Ottawa River.
The ministry periodically measures five water quality criteria, including dissolved solids, phosphorus content and dissolved oxygen in the river. Gatineau met all Quebec water standards except during the spring of 2005 when the level of dissolved oxygen was below provincial standards.
Meredith Brown, of the environmental group the Ottawa Riverkeeper, said all towns on the river with combined storm and sanitary sewers probably dump sewage when it rains heavily.
“Storm water has been called the silent killer because it is combined with sewage and other things,” Ms. Brown said.
Ms. Brown said the best solution is for homeowners to reduce the amount of storm water by using rain barrels and “green roofs” covered with vegetation to absorb some rainfall.