City reports another sewage spill; Heavy rain dumps 6.2M litres into Ottawa River

City reports another sewage spill
Heavy rain dumps 6.2M litres into Ottawa River
(In case you aren't sure.. Yes, the "M" stands for MILLION!!!)

By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, Sun Media

The mix of snow melting and the weekend rain has forced 6.2 million litres of sewage to spill into the Ottawa River.

City councillors received a memo yesterday on the latest sewage spill which totals about 50 million litres over the last month.

From last Friday into Saturday 2.8 million litres of sewage flowed into the river, while an estimated 3.4 million litres of sewage spilled into the river from Saturday into Sunday.

The city says it has informed the Ministry of the Environment’s Spills Action Centre, the Public Health department and municipal water system operators.

Last week city crews noticed a leak outside a raw sewage pumping station in Richmond Village. The city said two bolts that secured a coupling between two sewage pipes rusted, so the pipe failed and raw sewage spilled into the ground.

With the help of some financial aid from both the provincial and federal governments, the city is installing real-time controls at five downtown sewer discharge locations that will help staff better monitor and report overflows. The real-time control systems are expected to be in operation by the fall.

Ottawa’s combined sewer system allows the sanitary sewer operation to provide capacity for storm water runoff when volumes are high, particularly during a rainstorm.

Normally, raw sewage from homes and businesses flows through a dedicated pipe to a treatment plant. But in a heavy rainfall excess storm is mixed in with the sewage, and when levels are too high for the system to handle, rather than letting it back up onto city streets and into homes, the mixture enters a bypass that overflows into a nearby waterway.
(Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Canada's capital. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I live in Ottawa. Last year we had thousands of dead catfish reported along our river shores. City Officials said it was localized and that it wasn't causing that big of a problem. Let me tell you, I went for a walk along the river in the Parkdale area and there were not only 40-50 dead catfish on the shore (well beyond the geographic area designated by City Officials as "localized") in various stages of decomposition, there were 20-30 dead sea birds littering the shores as well. I can't believe this is STILL happening! We get a lot of snow EVERY YEAR. EVERY YEAR it melts away. This isn't NEWS! WAKE THE FUCK UP! I can't believe this. And we wonder why the world is going to shit? Mayor Larry O'Brien is going to court for election scandals/ corruption; we spew RAW SEWAGE by the shit-load, into our waterways; the Police run around 'above-the-law'- ILLEGALLY beating, detaining, robbing, searching, assaulting, sexually harassing, (personally heard a female officer comment on a 15yrd old boy's genetalia; We filed a formal complaint with the Ottawa Police and we were invited to a meeting and then absolutely ditched at the Elgin police station by the Sgt. in Professional Standards- despite numerous phone calls and station-wide intercom pages) humiliating, intimidating, bullying and violating CHARTER RIGHTS of citizens of this City. This is the most ridiculous place to live... unless you work for the Government and have the same mindset and life style. It's so frustrating to live in this place! It's like screaming at the top of your lungs and then you look around and nobody seems to have ears! It all seems so pointless! MORONS have taken over the world! Welcome to 1984 (Orwell) ) -W