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Rain that has fallen on the nation’s capital during the past week has flushed more than 132 million litres of sewage and untreated storm water into the Ottawa River.
The latest spills bring the total dumped into the river this year to 1.16 billion litres, almost three times the amount for an average year.
On Sept. 28, 8.7 million litres was spilled into the river, while 79 million litres poured in the following day. From Oct. 3 to 5 almost 45 million litres more effluent spilled into the waterway.
While some city councillors have called the continued spills a national disgrace, the city says it is moving forward to limit the overflows by next summer.
The city is installing a half-dozen real-time control systems at strategic points along its sewage and storm water collector system to will allow it to better control how much sewage and untreated storm water spills into the river during a rain storm.
By doing so, city officials say they should reduce the overflows by 65%.
Last month Ontario’s environment commissioner, Gord Miller, was in the city to review Ottawa’s combined sewer system. He said the city is on track to solving its sewage-spill problem, but it doesn’t yet have a plan to tackle contaminated, untreated storm water from making its way into the river.
Contaminated storm water is the main cause of closures at beaches along the river because of high E. coli counts.
The city will have to spend about about $400 million to stop the flow of sewage into the river on top of the work it is completing installing the real-time control systems.