For years, a Montreal elementary school has inadvertently released its raw sewage into a nearby river.
Lester B. The Pierson School Board announced the temporary closure of two restrooms at Terry Fox Elementary School in Pierrefonds-Roxboro Borough because wastewater was mistakenly discharged into a storm sewer instead of a sanitary sewer.
It contributed to water contamination at a site in the Rivière des Prairies region north of Montreal Island. Stormwater drains into a river near a public park, where faecal coliform counts consistently exceed the pollution threshold set by the city at 60 times.
City officials have known about the contamination since at least 2008, but say they didn’t discover the source until 2021. However, the school board says it learned about the sewage problem in a June 26 letter from the city. The Canadian press began asking questions about pollution.
Lester B. Darren Becker, director of communications for Pearson, said the city has requested an action plan by July 29. She hopes the school board will hire an engineering firm to replace the plumbing connections and have the work completed by the time the children return to school in August.
He doesn’t know why the school board didn’t find out about the problem sooner.
“I don’t want to blame the city,” he said. Eventually, the repair work will be carried out.
Mr. According to Becker, two restrooms were added to the school during an expansion in 1966. It is not certain whether sewage has been flowing into the river for all these years.
A well known problem for many years
Kim Nantais Desormiers, spokeswoman for the city of Montreal, did not respond to questions about why it took three years to report the problem to the school. However, he presented a timeline of steps taken to address the issue since 2008 First study
of the area.
Under this deadline, the city conducted color tests between 2009 and 2011 to determine where wastewater was going in storm drains, without success. Another series of tests in 2015 failed to find the source.
Finally, a third round of testing in 2021 revealed cross-connections — pipes connecting to storm sewers instead of sanitary sewers — at the residence and school.
Meanwhile, water pollution near the storm drain continued unabated.
City of Montreal data through 2012 show that concentrations of faecal coliforms near Rive-Boisée Park in Pierrefonds-Roxboro routinely reach levels of 60,000 per 100 milliliters.ml) and they even reached 100 to 370,000 ml.
The Quebec government considers water with a faecal coliform level of more than 100 to 200 ml Unsuitable for swimming and contaminated water with a concentration of more than 1000 per 100 ml.
Of nearly 500 readings taken between May 2012 and June 2024, the water quality at a sampling point near a storm drain was below contamination on only 66 occasions.
This year, 56,000 faecal coliforms per 100 were recorded at the sampling point. ml, from a sample taken in May. In this condition, a child who has played in water can easily become infected Diarrhea and stomach cramps for a few days
And the consequences could be dire, said Daniel Green, co-president of the environmental group Society to Overcome Pollution.
However, Rive-Boisée Park does not have a beach, and swimming is prohibited there.
Two nearby sampling points show very low pollution levels.
However, the river near the park is being polluted by Mr. Green says A well-known problem
For many years, the city was Too much delay in identifying the culprits
.
I think the city of Montreal is being dishonest. Easy to find [les sources] If we start
Daniel Green is co-chairman of Beat Pollution. (archive photo)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Emily Place
Green said signs should be placed in the park to warn people about pollution.
of Political procrastination
Sewer cross-connections are a long-standing problem, but they are difficult to fix. Repairs often involve digging up streets, and there can be disagreements over responsibilities. Mrs. Nanto’s Desormiers said that while the connection between the property and the sewer was on public property, the city took care of the work.
Mr. According to Green, the city is often delayed in addressing these issues due to administrative hurdles.
Casting them requires public shaming, because they will not act unless they are publicly shamed, he said. It’s a sad observation, but that’s what I saw.
There are other high-profile cases involving cross-linking in Montreal. In 2022, the city buried the last 200 meters of the Saint-Pierre River, which previously flowed from Mount Royal to the Saint-Laurent River.
The last stretch of the river ran through a golf course in west Montreal, but a court ordered the city to divert the water because of contamination from poor sewer lines in two neighboring neighborhoods. Environmentalists have condemned the decision.
The city estimates that 450 to 500 properties still have sewer crossovers, or 0.1% of properties on the island.
David Fletcher, vice-chairman of the Green Alliance, argued that property developers had never been there Especially dignified
Regarding sewerage connections.
The problem is real because people want to use the coastal area.
In the 1960s, when Terry Fox Elementary School was expanded, much of the city’s wastewater was released into waterways untreated. Montreal’s wastewater treatment plant only opened in the 1980s.
But today, Fletcher says, failure to solve the cross-linking problem is more frequent Political procrastination
.
I think it’s been a long time now. At some point, someone has to take the bull by the horns and spend the money to do it.
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