Open sewage pipe fouled Petrie Island beach

Councillors not told of malfunctioning sewer outlet for two years

Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008

East-end city councillors are pleased by a partial explanation for high E. coli counts at Petrie Island Beach in 2006, but they are disappointed that it took municipal staff two years to tell tell them about it.

The man-made beach, into which the city has sunk about $4 million, has been the target of ridicule since the summer of 2006, when it was closed for 45 days after the water was deemed unsafe for swimming.

Yesterday, the city's head of water and waste water, Dixon Weir, came clean on at least part of what plagued the beach.

A large swath of the downtown core has combined sanitary and storm sewers. Under normal circumstances, the sewers carry their contents to the sewage-treatment facility on the Ottawa River in Gloucester. During heavy rains, the system is overwhelmed and storm water and raw sewage are pumped into the river through five pipes.

Mr. Weir said one overflow pipe upstream from the beach -- near 24 Sussex Drive -- got stuck open after a large rainstorm on July 31, 2006 and it continued to dump raw sewage into the river until the problem was detected on Aug. 15.

Mr. Weir said 960,000 cubic metres, or about 350 Olympic-sized swimming pools, of raw sewage and storm water were dumped into the river, which would explain some of the beach problems that summer.

He said that after the problem was detected, his department immediately notified the provincial environment ministry and has since installed monitoring systems to signal a problem immediately. He acknowledged this information wasn't passed on to councillors. Mr. Weir called the non-communication a "shortfall," and said it wouldn't happen again.

Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett said he was glad to get an explanation for at least some of the high E. coli counts at the beach in 2006, but said he was "very disappointed" it took two years for the problem to come to light. Mr. Jellett said he wants to make sure that if anything like this happens again in any aspect of city business, elected leaders will be told.

"We have to find out what prevented this information from being reported to superiors, council and the public," he said.

The beach has been controversial since 2003, when council approved the project despite warnings from scientists that water quality could be a problem. In 2007, a dry year, the beach was closed for six days due to high E. coli counts. In 2006, it was closed for 45 days (and open only 26 days). In 2005, it was closed for 15 days.

An Environment Canada study at the beach last summer concluded water quality was dragged down by the presence of human feces. Researchers found the beach was most significantly affected by "fecal contamination sources on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River in 2007" although it failed to identify any one significant cause

The study also investigated the effects of bird droppings, but concluded "human health risks from these droppings remain uncertain."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

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