Montreal's Planned Sewage Dump

[Troutskiii]

Any of you fella's been following this story? City of Montreal over the next week will be dumping 8 billion litres of raw untreated sewage directly into the St.Lawrence River via underwater pipes. 12,000 litres per minute will be dumped into the river due to planned infrastructure repairs on the sewage system.

Montreal's mayor says he wishes there was another way,but they are dumping the sewage into the river the most environmentally safe way possible, really?

Minster of the Enviroment has already approved the dump as long as Montreal has an emergency managment plan in play....in case of what an extra few litres are dumped?

Montreal's mayor is urging residents to please not dispose of any diapers,condoms, tampons or any medication down your toilet over the next week as it will be directly dumped into the river.

This somewhat blows my mind I thought I was hearing things when I came across the story on the radio I had to go home and read this for myself. In 2015 we are dumping massive amounts of untreated sewage into a beautiful canadian river such as the St.Lawrence.

I'm usually not one to be outspoken but this to me is a really sad state of affairs and goes to show the complete lack of infrastructure capacity in the large canadian cities.

[StarTzar]

It's just a wee bit of crap that will be lost in the billions of gallons of water.
Give it a week or two and no one will be talking about it anymore.
The politicians will see to that.

http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-n ... -wednesday

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e27186653/

It must be an OK thing to do. After all it's been approved by the Minister of the Environment.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e27182162/

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015 ... rence.html

[Peron]

I saw this earlier today and was in disbelief. I lived in Halifax when one of the major sewage outflows for the city was about 20 yards offshore of the historic properties and about 100 yards from the Bluenose. Talk about a scenic vista (not to mention the smell). The city solved it by installing a longer pipe. I "think" they have treatment now but I am not sure.

Rivers, lakes, and oceans have always been toilets for cities but I thought Canadians were a little better....

But I am sure there is no alternative...... Right?

[TheMaverick]

In the grand scheme of things, here are some fun facts.

-An average dog will produce 272 pounds of "lawn sausage" in a year.
-Canada homes roughly 6 million dogs.
-On average, 40% of the "fudge nuggets" goes unscooped.

I didn't do the math, but somehow me thinks that a lot "deuce" dropping, and that's only for dogs!

The "Hershey kisses" are carried in our bodies of water by spring run-off and heavy rainfalls, either directly, or via storm sewers. Muskrat Lake is a prime example of this phenomenon.

I digress, as i do not agree with McKenna's decision, not much can be done but rant!

P.S. Scoop the poop!

[StarTzar]

Here is a visual from CJAD 800 - News. Talk. Radio

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news-human-int ... -next-week

[zippyfx]

It sounds like a lot but just think that in the past effluent went straight into the water all the time.

It will be washed out to sea in now time and will get diluted pretty quick.

Doing this in the cool fall months ensures that there won't be any "blooms" and we have got 8 months for it too dilute. There maybe some small issues if the flow get's funneled into some stagnant areas but the spring thaw should even get there.

What the city of Montreal needs to make sure of is that there is not single point of failure like this in the system in the future. Sounds like a poor design (either that or the redundancy options were financially too expensive) in the first place.

[Daboss]

I used to work at a sewage treatment facility and I know for a fact that "raw sewage" is 98% or better just water.
It takes a lot of time,effort, and machinery to extract that 2% undesirable content, which is in itself 99% bio-degradable biosolids that are spread on farm land.
Nothing much ever leaves this planet, it just gets shuffled around.
If you like math, take those numbers and relate them to the flow of the St. Lawrence and see just how small this event actually is.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e27186653/

[Troutskiii]

Daboss you do make some valid points, I'm very familiar with the sewer industry as I work in it myself. Yes the flow of the St.Lawrence will take all the sewage away quick and absorb it, the river is very powerful no doubt.

My point was that in 2015 with the technology and equipment available this kind of thing should not need to happen still. Overall most canadian cities are in really bad shape as far as infrastructure goes, I see it on a daily basis, both sewer,roadway and bridge infrastructure.

Perhaps more frequent, thorough inspections by the municipalities/cities we can prevent this type of event from happening in the future! Figuring out a solution before the end result is having to dump into a river is the responsible thing that needs to happen I believe.

[Daboss]

Here is a visual from CJAD 800 - News. Talk. Radio

http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news-human-int ... -next-week

I sincerely doubt the veracity of that picture, it's probably just some stock picture, since , according to the info I've seen, the outflows are located under the surface of the river,
Shame on CJAD!

[CNs]

I used to work at a sewage treatment facility and I know for a fact that "raw sewage" is 98% or better just water.
It takes a lot of time,effort, and machinery to extract that 2% undesirable content, which is in itself 99% bio-degradable biosolids that are spread on farm land.
Nothing much ever leaves this planet, it just gets shuffled around.
If you like math, take those numbers and relate them to the flow of the St. Lawrence and see just how small this event actually is.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... e27186653/

Dagnabit....we don't need logic. You are ruining a perfectly good opportunity to rant illogically and profusely

[RJ]

Well put Norm. This has happened to the Ottawa River downstream of the city every year for as long as most of us have been alive.....doesn't make it right though.

RJ

[cprince]

Personally I think it is repugnant and wouldn't eat anything out of there before and especially after the flushing of the toilet that is my home town, into the Larry... BUT:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... -1.3264199

They say it's not big deal. I suppose the 3 second rule for food falling on the floor has a larger scale equivalent for dumping Ginette Reno's singing inspirations into the environment:

The 8 Billion Litre Rule.

[TheMaverick]

Personally I think it is repugnant and wouldn't eat anything out of there before and especially after the flushing of the toilet that is my home town, into the Larry... BUT:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... -1.3264199

They say it's not big deal. I suppose the 3 second rule for food falling on the floor has a larger scale equivalent for dumping Ginette Reno's singing inspirations into the environment:

The 8 Billion Litre Rule.

Can you trust the opinion of any engineering consultant based in Montreal?

[StarTzar]

Personally I think it is repugnant and wouldn't eat anything out of there before and especially after the flushing of the toilet that is my home town, into the Larry... BUT:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... -1.3264199

They say it's not big deal. I suppose the 3 second rule for food falling on the floor has a larger scale equivalent for dumping Ginette Reno's singing inspirations into the environment:

The 8 Billion Litre Rule.

Can you trust the opinion of any engineering consultant based in Montreal?

Sure we can ... They are the same consultants that worked with the Montreal Construction Boss.

[zippyfx]

A relevant quote:

"Everything that is soluble is not really removed by the treatment station," he said. "In the case of bacteria and micro-organisms, there isn't any disinfection that goes on."
He said the difference is that the treatment centre removes solid materials and phosphorus."

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/montreal-b ... -1.2657981