Hamilton sewer leak likely to have 'relatively small' environmental impact, officials say
Wastewater sewage that has been spilling into the Hamilton Harbour for approximately 26 years is an “anomaly” incident and the environmental impacts will likely be “relatively small,” a city official says.
“Knowing that something like this could happen for that duration without us knowing about it doesn't make any of us feel good,” Director of Hamilton Water Nick Winters said at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The City of Hamilton announced Tuesday afternoon that it had discovered a sewage leak into the harbour in Lake Ontario while conducting work for another project.
The leak was discovered at the northeast corner of Wentworth Street North and Burlington Street East and has gone undetected since 1996, the city said.
Winters said the leak was caused by a contractor who accidentally created a hole in a combined sewage pipe while working on a watermain project.
“The issue of course is that there's a very large storm sewer behind me here underground that runs along Wentworth Street North and out to the harbourfront. And on the harborfront there’s a storm sewer outfall, so any flow from that pipe goes out to the harbour. That outfall’s submerged 100 per cent of the time…so there would have been nothing visible… that would have indicated to them that this spill was occurring over a period of time,” Winters said.
As a result, 39 properties have been flushing directly into a storm sewer leading into the harbour. The city initially reported yesterday that 50 properties were affected.
“We're talking about a fairly small neighborhood on the other side of Burlington Street. There is one industrial facility, Wentworth Metal, that discharges into the storm sewer. Other than that, it's all residential,” Winters said.
The city’s drinking water has not been affected and the overall risk to the public is "very low,” the city said.
Winters said it is believed that when the watermain project was being conducted, there was an addition made to create a hole in the combined sewer and into the storm sewer based on an inaccurate drawing of the project by engineers.
“It looks like the individuals involved in that project were mistakenly thinking that they were dealing with two storm sewers. So they're creating a connection from one storm sewer into another, which wouldn't have been a problem… Unfortunately, that's not the case,” Winters said.
Director of Hamilton Water Nick Winters speaks at a news conference on Nov. 23, 2022.
It is not clear why the information in the drawing was incorrect.
Winters said there are programs that regularly inspect the city’s storm sewer system, which spans about 2,100 kilometres. But crews would not have noticed this leak based on their inspections, he said.
Winters added that would describe this incident as an “anomaly” that was only discovered due to some work that was being done in advance of maintenance being done in the area.
“Do we need to put in different programs to look for anomalies within our system? It would be difficult for me to stand in front of you and say that that's not the case,” he said.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath has asked the city auditor to start a preliminary investigation into the pipe leak.
Ever since the discovery, the city said crews started working immediately to rectify the situation.
Yesterday afternoon, crews brought a truck to the site to vacuum up the discharge from the combined sewer pipe to prevent it from getting into the storm sewer.
Wednesday morning, crews began fixing the problem by reconnecting the sewer into the city’s Western Sanitary interceptor, which is a massive sanitary sewer that runs under Burlington Street all the way down to the Woodward Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“We believe that this is a permanent fix and it's going to resolve this but we do need to do some further engineering work, some hydraulic modeling, just to make sure the impacts of this new connection that didn't exist previously aren't going to result in any flooding risks during wet weather events for the neighborhoods that serviced by this pipe,” Winters said.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS EXPECTED TO BE SMALL
It’s unclear how much sewage has been filling into the harbour but officials say they’ll have preliminary results on that tomorrow.
Winters said the primary concern is the environmental impacts, but he expects that to be minimal.
“From an environmental perspective, and I don't say this to try and minimize this event, I think we're going to find that the impacts are relatively small, because of the volumes related to dilution here,” he said.
The leak has prompted some concerns that the city is not doing enough to manage its water reservoirs, particularly after the discovery of a 24-billion-litre sewage leak in Chedoke Creek in July 2018.
However, Winters reassured residents that this is “not the Chedoke spill.”
“What we're talking about that’s happened here is something that never should have happened. This is an intervention that was made in the sewer system back in the 90s that would not have made its way onto an inventory for our maintenance team to inspect on a regular basis.”
“Because the team that was thinking this was a storm sewer discharging into another storm sewer, that happens all over the city. We don't go out of our way to inspect those connections just to make sure that nothing is going wrong,” he added.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Former homicide detective explains how police will investigate shooting outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
Stormy Daniels describes meeting Trump during occasionally graphic testimony in hush money trial
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Alcohol believed to be a factor in boating incident after 2 men die: N.S. RCMP
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
Northern Ont. woman makes 'eggstraordinary' find
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, who played spirited cheerleader Patty Simcox in 'Grease,' dead at 72
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Jeremy Skibicki has 'uphill battle' to prove he's not criminally responsible in Winnipeg killings: legal analysts
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
Bye-bye bag fee: Calgary repeals single-use bylaw
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
CFL suspends Argos QB Chad Kelly at least nine games following investigation
The CFL suspended Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly for at least nine regular-season games Tuesday following its investigation into a lawsuit filed by a former strength-and-conditioning coach against both the player and club.