New system to report raw sewage discharge to be developed

Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008

OTTAWA - After public works staff failed to tell senior management, council or even the health department about a serious raw sewage discharge into the Ottawa River for two years after it happened, a protocol of passing on such information is being developed, the city's top bureaucrat said Thursday.

Kent Kirkpatrick said when a sewer malfunction caused nearly one million cubic metres of raw sewage to be dumped in the Ottawa River in August 2006, knowledge of the problem only went to the middle management level and it stayed there even though government agencies, senior management and elected officials were searching for an explanation for high E.coli levels in the river.

Mr. Kirkpatrick admitted that no formal information-sharing policy on major events such as this exists in the city bureaucracy. He also said new technology and monitoring practices now in place would prevent such a serious discharge from the city's sewers.

<< back to previous page