TORONTO - Billions of litres of untreated sewage are gushing into Ontario's waterways due to aging infrastructure and poor provincial oversight, says a report by environmental group Ecojustice.
The report, "Flushing out the Truth," compiles the amount of sewage dumped into lakes and rivers by various Ontario municipalities in 2006 and 2007.
According to Ministry of the Environment figures analyzed by the group, approximately 18 billion litres of untreated sewage veered away from treatment plants and ended up in water bodies across the province in 2006, while 15 billion litres were dumped in 2007.
"It's just not interesting or sexy to invest in sewers and that's part of the problem, but we really need to be doing this," said Elaine MacDonald, author of the report and senior scientist at Ecojustice.
Much of the untreated waste made its way into water bodies through sewage bypasses -- diversions which carry excess sewage to lakes or rivers when treatment plants are over capacity or have technical problems.
Added to that are combined sewage overflows, which occur in older systems where stormwater and sewage from sinks, toilets and drains gush along the same pipe. Bad weather can cause the pipes to overflow into a lake or river.
Bypasses have to occur to prevent basements flooding or treatment plants backing up, said Ontario Ministry of Environment spokesperson Kate Jordan.
Dan Atkinson, vice president operations for the Ontario Clean Water Agency -- a provincial agency -- adds that a "wastewater plant is a living organism."
"We can bypass wastewater or we can risk blowing out the biological mass in the wastewater plant," he said.
Tests are conducted on water which is bypassed so agencies can track the strength of the waste being diverted into waterways. All overflows are supposed to be reported to the ministry, with major incidents made public through health advisories or beach signs.
The ministry also aims to invest $30 billion over a five-year period, starting in 2010, to upgrade wastewater infrastructure.
Physical contact with sewage overflows which occur close to shorelines are a major concern, said MacDonald.
"We need to get this information out to the public so people start thinking about this when they go down to the local beach," she said.
The environmental agency wants provincial and municipal governments to keep a sharper eye out for dirty spills and make them public as they occur.
Topping the list of the report's worst offenders was Niagara Falls, which released 7.5 billion litres of untreated sewage between 2006 and 2007. Hamilton came in second with 5 billion litres and Windsor was third with 4.3 billion litres of the smelly stuff oozing into provincial waterways.
The numbers make the region of Niagara seem worse than it is, said Rich Vikers, district manager of the ministry of environment's Niagara office. The region has published a map of overflow information for the public and plans to update it with real-time information within the next year.
"We have placed a lot of obligations on the local municipalities to report their overflows and I think that's why Niagara comes out looking like it's No. 1," said Vikers.
The region also received $10 million in federal and provincial funding to complete a high-rate wastewater treatment plant which would be the second of its kind in the area.
Ecojustice is urging municipalities to adopt green infrastructure to deal with storm water pushing sewage pipes over capacity. That type of infrastructure uses rain-barrels, green roofs and even designated storm-water wetlands to collect excess water during bad weather.
