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City of Ottawa beaches are to open Saturday for the first day of summer, but testing has revealed that bacteria levels in the Ottawa River are so high, two of the city’s four beaches may remain closed on opening weekend.
Testing this week has shown E. coli levels at Westboro beach have been up to five times what the health department considers safe. At Petire Island Friday, levels were almost twice what is acceptable.
Questions about the water quality of Ottawa’s beaches have swirled through the spring after the city admitted to a massive sewage leak a few years back.
Petrie Island, located in Ottawa’s east end, was closed for 45 days in 2006 after a valve malfunctioned, spilling more than 900,000 cubic metres of biological waste into the Ottawa River.
City of Ottawa councillor Bob Monette said he takes his family to Petrie Island all the time and anyone who is worried about E. coli levels can just check the city’s web site for daily testing results of the water.
(C) CTV Ottawa
“We do the tests every day and we would not encourage anyone to go swimming there if the water is not clean,” Monette said.
But the city wants to come up with a plan to limit impact of Ottawa’s over-taxed sewer system on the Ottawa River long term.
On Tuesday, Ottawa’s environment committee will call on the federal government to hand over $20 million as a “down payment” toward a river clean up that some say could cost $500 million.
“If we want to protect the Ottawa River, if we want to make sure that the impact we have on it as little as possible, we have to spend some serious money,” said Ottawa Councillor Peter Hume.
(C) CTV Ottawa