The massive dump of raw sewage into Ottawa’s river system in 2006 has done the city a favour. It has shown how badly flawed our pipes and filtration plant are.
It is a dirty lesson to learn. About 265 Olympic swimming pools worth of filth was dumped into our rivers last year during above normal precipitation periods. The capacity of the antiquated combined sanitary and waste water sewers is routinely overwhelmed. That results in sewage and waste water outflows from just east of Parkdale Avenue to Blair Road. These are, for the most part, downtown areas where Ottawa’s sewage system is at its oldest and most inadequate.
This practice has been going on for decades. It’s not a secret. Sewage officials would be eager to fix the problem but a solution involves great expense their political masters refuse to undertake. Nevertheless, since the rehabilitation of Petrie Island beach downstream from this mess, the public has become much more aware of the issue.
It’s not the first time this routine dumping has been publicized. But the public’s short attention span does not last long enough to initiate change. And the issue is not high enough on our elected officials’ agenda for them to mitigate this dumping. Even an offer by federal Environment Minister John Baird to pay one-third of the cost to stop the practice hasn’t enlisted much of a response.
Our rivers are one of the city’s great resources. We drink from them and play in them. They should be clean.