Ottawa's ROPEC Sewage
Treatment Plant
...and 38 other large
treatment plants in Ontario, discharged raw or partially treated
sewage into waterways, during and after the 2003 power outage.
At PLC meeting 2a, a city
engineer made the statement that the Ottawa treatment plant was
not affected by the 2003 power outage as it had power
back-up. He made the same assertion in meeting 2b but not as assertively.
He was incorrect. There were several accounts in the media in August 2003
about the dumping of raw sewage by the Ottawa and other treatment plants.
The following quotes and web links confirm this:
"While people were told to
turn off air conditioners, they were warned about using local
beaches to cool down. The power outage affected sewage
treatment, raw sewage was dumped, leading to a health hazard in
the Ottawa River."
"Most public beaches along
the Ottawa River were kept open, except those downstream from a
sewage treatment plant east of the city, which discharged some
contaminated effluent because of the power emergency."
In addition, there are
web-articles about other sewage treatment facilities that were
affected:
"Public transit in Ottawa is
running as usual, but people in the city are being asked not to
fill up their cars. There is not enough gasoline to go around as
the oil companies attempt to get their supply systems back to
normal.
The city's water supply and water treatment plants are fully
operational, but 51 boil water orders remain in effect across
Ontario and 39 sewage treatment plants are still affected by the
outage."
(Note the number of plants
affected. However, the article didn't say that Ottawa's ROPEC
was affected"
"Cleveland and New York had
sewage spills into waterways requiring beach closures."
"The Canadian office of
critical infrastructure protection and emergency issued an
update late Saturday. It said 39 sewage treatment plants have
been affected."
(...39 sewage
treatment plants on Canadian side of the border.)
5.
http://www.nipc.gov/dailyreports/2003/August/DHS_IAIP_Daily_2003-08-29.pdf
"August 28, New York Times —
Sewage spill exposes a lingering problem. Minutes after New
York
City
lost its power on August 14, raw sewage began to flow into
surrounding
waterways. By the time
electricity was restored, 490 million gallons had spilled. This
was not
the first time. The blackout of
1977 caused a sewage overflow of 828 million gallons, which
spilled from eight treatment
plants."
6.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/metro/0312/02/b01-339775.htm
"More than 100 million gallons of
raw sewage and other contaminated waste was discharged into
Metro Detroit rivers and lakes when the widespread Aug. 14
electrical blackout knocked out backup power at sewage cleanup
plants, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental
Quality. "
(The only information we have not
been able to find out is length of time/amounts of discharge of
untreated and partially treated sewage. )
The only conclusion we can reach
is that the large plants are too difficult to back up
electrically to the extent required.
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