Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
East-end politicians appear to be burying their heads in the sand at Petrie Island beach. That’s a questionable practice because an Environment Canada report showed that the beach last summer was contaminated with human fecal matter and the sand was “serving as a reservoir for E. coli.”
So politicians should remove their melons from the beach immediately. Oddly, most have been slow to do that.
“It’s a great place and we need to build up the reputation of Petrie Island immediately,” said councillor and sand-lover Rainer Bloess. He sees the beach and its environs as a precious spot.
And that point is where reality and dreams separate. Petrie Island could be a wonderful nature reserve and a place where residents could frolic in the crystal clear flow of the Ottawa River. Except for one point – the river is dirty.
So before the Innes ward councillor runs off touting the merits of Petrie Island as the garden spot of Eastern Ontario, he and his colleagues should make it so. Clean it up. Most positive promotions now would just be false advertising.
It’s easy to talk about the concept of a beautiful beach; it’s much more difficult to actually create it. And what great resources our Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau rivers would be if they were actually clean. However right now, few people would jump into the urban sections of those flows with gusto and abandon.
Much is being made of the fact that a faulty sewer grate dumped much human fecal matter into the river system two years ago for two weeks. Perhaps the biggest sin was that councillors were not told of the problem for two years. Council can’t act on issues without knowing the full extent of them. Council is concerned and city staff is concerned. That should be enough concern to fix the communication problem.
But that spill was two years ago and the Environment Canada study was in 2007. Still during large rainfalls, combined sanitary and storm-water sewers overwhelm the city’s sewage treatment plant in the east end, sending raw sewage into the Ottawa River. That filthy water is quite likely to float by Petrie Island.
As early as 2003, scientists warned the city that pollution was likely to be a problem at the Petrie Island beach and park. Still, city council spent $4 million on the site to turn it into what it is today.
Environment Minister John Baird has offered $20 million if it is matched by the province and city to help solve the sewage plant overflow difficulty. With the city in a budget crunch, it is perhaps understandable why it is reluctant to address the offer. The silence has been deafening from the province.
Nevertheless, our politicians need to understand that beaches are about clean water and sand. Decreasing pollution is not just a public-relations exercise.