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OTTAWA — As the snow melts, the combined sewer system in the city’s core is regularly being overwhelmed, forcing runoff and sewage to be discharged directly into the Ottawa River, city reports say.
In most parts of the city, sanitary and storm sewers are separated. In these areas, water from melting snow and rainstorms flows to water ways or holding ponds while household and commercial sewage is pumped to the city treatment plant. However, much of the downtown core has older, combined sewers.
Under normal circumstances in these areas, runoff and sewage arepiped to the plant together, but the pipes aren’t big enough to handle flows during heavy rains and rapid melts. During these times, the system is designed to overflow into the Ottawa River to relieve the pressure so sewage doesn’t back up into buildings and streets.
In the last few weeks, this has happened more than 10 times, including on Thursday when 2.4 million litres of runoff and sewage was dumped.
In updates to council on the situation, Dixon Weir, director of water and waste water at the city, says all overflows have been reported to the provincial environment ministry as required by law.
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