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City launches real-time sewage overflow tracking

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Now that the warmer weather is pretty well here, citizens will soon be heading out to Kingston's waterfront to perhaps swim, paddle or fish.

But seeing raw sewage floating on the water's surface would be enough to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for water use.

The City of Kingston and Utilities Kingston have come up with a way to warn residents in real time when the water may not be so safe and enjoyable because of higher pollution levels.

Sewage in the water is usually seen within 48 hours after the city pumps sewage from its combined sewer system into Lake Ontario. This usually occurs after a heavy rainstorm when the city can't treat the high volume of untreated water in its system. It gets rids of the water by pumping it into the lake.

Earlier this month, between May 4 and 8, Utilities Kingston bypassed almost 80,000 cubic metres of wastewater into the river. The sewage dump into the river followed another sewage bypass of 67,685 cubic metres that went into the river on May 1 and 2.

That's enough sewage to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

From April 4-6, also due to heavy rain, the utility dumped just over 214,000 cubic metres into the river.

So far this year, the utility has put just over 364,000 cubic metres of sewage combined with storm water into the river, more than three times more than it dumped in all of 2016.

The city has always been transparent on how much sewage it dumps into the lake. Statistics dating back 10 years are published on the Utilities Kingston website, but now the overflows can be tracked in real time.

Kingston Utilities president and CEO Jim Keech said Kingston is the first municipality in Ontario, and possibly in Canada, to offer real-time public notification of sewer overflows.

That doesn't mean the overflows will lessen right away, Keech said Thursday morning at the Kingston Street Water Treatment Plant.

"This has been an inherent problem," Keech told approximately 30 area stakeholders and Utilities Kingston staff at the launch of the program. "We are working towards it, we will continue to work towards it, but I think this gives us one more tool at managing it."

Overflows have been cut down over the years, Keech said, "with the work that we have done in working towards eliminating these and that is our end goal."

He also realizes the end of sewage overflows are a ways away.

"We've done a lot of work in the last 20 years and we probably have another 20 years of work to do," he said.

Also speaking at the event were representatives of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change; Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox and Addington Public Health; Lake Ontario Waterkeepers; and Mayor Bryan Paterson.

"What we've tried to do with this is to provide residents, users of the waterway, with a notification system that when these happen -- and unfortunately they are going to happen for some time -- people are aware of it and can make educated decisions on their own," Keech said.

Paterson called the program a leading-edge technology that's important to the Kingston community and others who share the use of the area waters. It also fits in with the vision of Kingston being a 21st-century city.

"To do that, you have to have 21st-century infrastructure, so that speaks to the great work that Utilities Kingston has been doing over the past number of years converting us from 1950s infrastructure to where everything went into a combined sewer and created a number of different environmental issues," Paterson said.

"It's a great way to manage it with a new technology, technology that will be able to inform residents if there's a heavy rainfall and there is a temporary situation with a sewer overflow, and people can be careful of that and people can be notified in real time."

Krystyn Tully, founder and vice-president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, told the group that in the past her group has been critical of the city's treatment of the local waterways, but over the past few years it has started to take community concerns about water quality seriously.

"I think it's a testament to how far this city has come and how responsive both the city and Utilities Kingston has been to the public's concern and comments," she said. "Now they're developing technology that's becoming the gold standard to which all communities in Ontario should be performing. It's really remarkable."

The Lake Ontario Waterkeeper is a non-profit group from Toronto. Its goal is to guard, restore and protect the lake's natural resources and work for swimmable, drinkable and fishable water.

"Sewage is an issue that's near and dear to our hearts because sewage is the No. 1 cause of surface water pollution in North America," Tully said.

"So when a city like Kingston steps forward to say this is an issue, we take it seriously. We want to solve it."

Tully said that when people who want to go swimming with their children or go paddling see sewage in the water, they'll probably never go back after the bad impression.

"They turn their back on the water, there's no investment in the waterfront, there's no connection to the waterfront, and it influences the entire cultural way of life in a community," she sid.

When given this information, people can choose to stay away from the waterfront but also see days when the water is clean.

"We can flock to the water when it's clean, and that becomes a rallying point for investment and a new way of life in the community," Tully said.

"We can't wait for the other 40 communities in Ontario with combined sewer systems to follow suit."

After the event, Tully said Kingston is in the middle of the pack among 40 Ontario communities with combined sewers when it comes to overflows, with Hamilton being at the top, but it is trying to fix that, she said.

"They're making significant investment in their sewage collections and treatment right now."

She added Toronto is not doing much to limit sewage going into its end of Lake Ontario.

"It's a tale of two cities. You see the city of Kingston is embracing public concerns and trying to reconnect people to the waterfront, and they're developing incredible, innovative technology in the process, and unfortunately what we see happening in the city of Toronto is they're not as responsive to the public's concerns, which means we're not getting that same kind of infrastructure attention and also not the same kind of innovation happening either," Tully said.

"Toronto can learn a lot from Kingston."

People can check a map within 48 hours after heavy rain at www.UtilitiesKingston.com/Overflows.

Sewer overflow locations affecting the Cataraqui River, the Little Cataraqui Creek and other surrounding bodies of water are also shown.

imacalpine@postmedia.com

Twitter @IanMacAlpine

 

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