Infrastructure investments by all three levels of government will reduce sewer overflows in Ottawa

Summary: Funding to improve Ottawa's sewer systems will help to drastically reduce overflow during heavy rainfalls.

Funding to improve Ottawa’s sewer systems, including the recent announcement of an $18.73-million investment partnership between the City of Ottawa and the Federal Government and earlier funding commitments from the Provincial Government, will help to drastically reduce overflow during heavy rainfalls.
Implementation of Real Time Control (RTC) technology, combined with other sewer infrastructure investments, are reducing overflow discharges into the Ottawa River. RTC upgrades to five combined sewer overflow (CSO) sites (sanitary and storm water) will maximize conveyance capacity within the system to reduce overflow during heavy rainfalls. When completed in spring 2010, the RTC projects are expected to reduce the volume of overflows discharged into the Ottawa River by 65 percent during an average year.
Statistics from a seven-month control period in 2008, submitted to the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) today as part of an annual regulatory reporting requirement for all municipalities with combined sewer systems, show that 99.3 per cent of collected sewage in Ottawa reaches the secondary treatment process involving a series of physical, biological and chemical treatment processes.
“The City’s investments are paying off in terms of reducing waste water discharges and improving the quality of water in the Ottawa River,” said Councillor Peter Hume, Chair of the Planning and Environment Committee. “With the soon-to-be commissioned Real Time Control projects, City staff will be using ‘best available technology’ to maximize our use of available capacity in the sewer system. This will produce significant reductions in CSO volumes in the next 10 to 12 months.”
Sanitary sewers convey wastewater from homes and businesses to the Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre (ROPEC) in the east end for secondary treatment. Storm water sewers channel rainwater into our rivers but this storm water can be contaminated by animal waste and pollution on the ground. Combined sewers collect and convey sanitary and storm water to ROPEC. Overflows occur primarily as a result of heavy rainfalls that flood the combined sewer collection systems beyond their fixed capacities so that the rainwater, mixed with wastewater in the system, overflows from the collection system before reaching ROPEC.
The City has been working for many years to separate sewers in various areas of the City. The value of separation work completed to date is estimated at $750 million. The City is in the midst of constructing upgrades to the largest overflow sites, the Rideau Canal Interceptor and the Rideau River Interceptor/Keefer Street site. Design work is nearing completion on the third element of this program, the West End Regulator project. In addition, the combined sewage overflow interception rate will be significantly increased at the Bolton Street/Cathcart and Cave Creek Collectors through these same projects.
“Even impacted by the significant snow melt of 2008 and rainfall over 35 percent greater than normal during the Control Period, Ottawa’s combined sewer overflow is less than 0.7 percent of total volume generated,” said Dixon Weir, General Manager of Environmental Services. “Using the Sierra Legal’s 2005 Sewage Report Card, Ottawa collects and treats a larger proportion of sewage than other Ontario cities with combined sewage collection systems. However, the City is developing plans to go even further and to direct more combined sewage to treatment,” he said.

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