In August 2006, over 700 million litres of raw sewage poured into the Ottawa River through a sewer gate which had stuck open. Waste flooded the river for 15 days, closing a beach and poisoning Ottawa’s water supply. This month, the city was fined $562,500 for the crime.
And now Larry O’Brien says we’re going to pay the bill.
The mayor announced last week that the city may cut funding to the Ottawa Hospital in order to pay the fine. But provincial legislation prohibits this, so the money is going to come out of the stretched city budget, sapping even more money from a cash-strapped infrastructure.
But the fact is, the city could have monitored its systems more closely and put more money into its ailing sewer systems. While this fine may seem punitive, it was something the city could have avoided. Now, O’Brien is telling tax payers that their hospital will shoulder the burden. It’s unfair, and it overshadows the good work the city has been doing since it was notified of the spill earlier on this year.
Ottawa’s sewer system was built between 1920 and 1930. It has one main pipe system, which carries sanitary waste and storm water. During heavy rainfall, the extra water causes Ottawa’s sewer systems to overflow into the river. Other older cities in Ontario have similar problems.
Newer developments, such as Orleans, don’t have the same issues because their sewers have a two-pipe system which separates sanitary waste and storm water. Rainfall gets dumped into local bodies of water, and sanitary waste gets sent to water treatment centres.
The City of Ottawa is in the midst of a project called Real Time Control to rejuvenate Ottawa’s system. The goal of Real Time is to use the city’s current sewer network more effectively. Equipment upgrades totalling $25 million are in progress. The project aims to capture more overflow at points which have been identified as problem areas, and is slated to be finished in 2010. While this still won’t change the basic functioning principles of the system, it will bring the city’s overflow within provincial environmental standards.
The huge 2006 spill was not an overflow issue; it was a case of a gate controlling the sanitary systems getting jammed open, going unnoticed for days, and then going unreported to the city until May 2008. While the city was not notified of the spill until this year, it didn’t need a report to tell them that their socks were falling down.
It is a well-known fact that the city has an aging infrastructure which has been struggling to serve a city it wasn’t designed to support.
“The fact of the matter is, in order to handle the larger flows which are happening each and every year, you have to be upgrading your system, not just maintaining it,” says Frank Zechner, executive director of the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Organization.
In a sense, the 2006 spill and consequent fine has been a good thing, because it has drawn decisive action from the city and the province to help improve our sewer systems.
One of these actions is a province-ordered check of the city’s valve gates after every rainfall. These checks stopped a sanitary sewage spill this past July. A gate, which was discovered stuck open, was closed just two-and-a-half hours after discovery.
Another positive effect of the fine is that it sends a message to the public that the province is serious about protecting the Ottawa River.
Over the past five years the city has spent an average of $150 to $200 million on renewing Ottawa’s systems. As Wayne Newell, the city’s director of infrastructure pointed out in an interview, this is still not enough.
So where would that money come from? The Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Organization suggests a three part plan for generating funds for sewer infrastructure renewal: full residential metering, full cost pricing, and dedicated reserves.
The first phase of the plan, full residential metering, means the city would measure the exact amount of water people use. Some areas of the province have sewer systems that are so old that residents are charged a flat rate for water usage. Introducing full residential metering would not only encourage water preservation, but also provide more revenue for the city.
The second phase of the plan, full-cost pricing, shifts the full cost of water onto the taxpayer. While it sounds like a big adjustment, residents would see their water bill go up to a price comparable with the average cable bill.
The final phase is dedicated reserves. Generated from the profits of the previous two phases, this reserve fund would be available to cities when larger projects, such as separating Ottawa’s sewer pipes, come up.
Ultimately, Ottawa has been given $77.2 million from the province. It’s been promised $33 million from the federal government. It’s time for the city to assume full responsibility for its spotty record, continue some of the good work it has started, and to stop using taxpayers to try to manipulate the province.