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February 28, 2005:
Forcemain
failure #7, remained unnoticed by City’s “sophisticated” alarm
system
It took an
observant Richmond resident to detect on-going sewage leak into
Jock River
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The Richmond
to Glen Cairn forcemain (pressurized) sewer has failed for the 7th
time in its short 20-year lifetime.
A fissure
has developed on the south edge of the Jock River, in the area of
the twin pipeline crossing, and appears to have been spewing
soil-filtered
sewage into the river for an extended period. About five days
before residents notified the MOE Spill centre and made city
officials aware of the problem, a Richmond resident noticed the
gaping hole in the ice from a distance and decided to check it
more closely this past Sunday (February 27th).
The most
disturbing feature of the last few breaks is that most are showing
evidence of weeks to months of undetected leaking activity before
the final massive ruptures occur. This is the “nightmare scenario”, in the case of the planned Munster to Richmond forcemain,
which residents believe would pose a constant risk to their
shallow aquifer and would put lives in constant danger from
possible E-coli contamination
of their drinking water. |
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Brian Finch (left),
President of The Friends of the Jock River, and Tim
van der Horn, also a member of the FJR and the
Richmond resident who first detected the break, view
sewage leak into River. |
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A fissure has developed on the south edge of the
Jock River ...and appears to have been spewing
soil-filtered sewage into the river for an
extended period.
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Photo at right shows the gaping
cavern under Jock River ice melted by a warm sewage leak which
appears to have continued unchecked for months.
Had this not NOW been exposed by residents, it could have leaked into the River all summer long ...or until an
eventual massive rupture would set off the city's crude alarm system.
Not much
protection or comfort for the 90% of residents on shallow
wells!
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“City engineers
must not be allowed to even think about proceeding with startup of
the Munster to Richmond forcemain ...without doing the
thorough analysis of risks to Richmond and area wells, and an
audit of the condition of the 20-year-old Richmond to Glen Cairn forcemain---which appears
to be near the end of its usefulness."
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Given that
the last three forcemain breaks showed evidence of longitudinal
splits, and/or slow erosion in the area of the fissure, many
residents now believe that there is a strong likelihood that slow-leaking fissures
exist along the entire length of the forcemain
between Richmond and Glen Cairn.
“City engineers
must not be allowed to even think about proceeding with startup of
the Munster to Richmond forcemain,” they say, without doing the
thorough analysis of risks to Richmond and area wells, and an
audit of the condition of the 20-year-old Richmond to Glen Cairn
forcemain---which appears to be near the end of its usefulness.
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...many residents now believe that there is a strong
likelihood that slow-leaking fissures exist along the entire
length of the forcemain
between Richmond and Glen Cairn.
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City officials
have no right to subject ratepayers to such wanton risk and
constant worry.
There is no
possible rationale, whatsoever, that Councillor Stavinga, Mayor
Chiarelli, and gaggles of consultants, engineers and bureaucrats
can possibly come up with ---to explain such lunacy.
The cost of a
100%-safe on-site treatment plant was firmly bid at $3.8-million,
while detailed cost breakdowns by independent (unpaid) engineers
have shown that the taxpayer's money wasted to date, in all of the
contorted efforts to force the pipeline between Munster and
Richmond, has soared past a scandalous, $30,000,000.
Observers are
beginning to conclude that such profound failure of the
politicians and bureaucrats to justify their strange actions,
cannot be explained by anything other than some political, immoral
or corrupt backroom dealings with friendly contractors. “Nothing
else fits,” stated one frustrated resident.
The resident
went on to say, “It’s also a crime that many Ministry of
Environment officials appear so incompetent that they cannot
protect the public, even when Environmental Assessment Act laws
are broken.”
In a recent
talk to the ROMA convention in Toronto, (February 23, 2005),
Provincial Environment Minister, Leaona Dombrowsky stated that
“There will never be another Walkerton.” If the Munster forcemain
is ever put into use, before a legal Environmental
Assessment is completed, the Minister may very well have
played a role in making this a false prediction …even
within her short watch!
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NOTE:
If
you have not already filled out the Rural Council's
ON-LINE PETITION, in the
interest of protecting the drinking-water source of
over 5,000 Richmond-area residents, from city-caused
contamination, please do so now:
CLICK HERE
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Review of
two other recent breaks:
Break # 6
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Break # 5
Some
related correspondence with city and others:
CLICK
HERE
Update:
March 16, 2004:
Meanwhile, problems at other end of Richmond
...WITH THE NEW FORCEMAIN
Update:
March 23, 2004:
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The Ottawa Citizen
- LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
City risks health of Richmond residents
Re:
Officials say leak is groundwater,
Richmond residents aren't convinced, March 21.
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, March 23,
2005
I arrived at the scene on the Jock River on a very cold day
when city officials were examining the strange hole in the ice
that was supposedly caused by seepage of groundwater. It would
be almost laughable, if it weren't so serious, that the
strange hole was directly above one of the two sewer pipes
that cross the Jock River.
Only about 300 feet away from this ice hole was the site
where the sewer main blew out less than 18 months ago. I saw
the piece of plastic pipe that was removed from the blowout,
and concluded that I couldn't have created such a rupture in
the thick plastic pipe if I had whacked it 100 times with a
sledge-hammer.
Come on, David McCartney, manager of wastewater and
drainage services, we country hicks know what sulphur smells
like. It's a naturally occurring element in the groundwater
that is piped into our houses from our wells. I smell it every
time I turn on a tap. This didn't smell like sulphur.
Any logical person would conclude that something is wrong
and start rapidly tracing the water back to its source to make
sure it wasn't coming from the sewer and that we don't wind up
having our wells contaminated.
The city is practising very poor "risk management" by
sticking their heads in the sand on this issue. They're
playing with my health. If the groundwater gets polluted, I
can guarantee you that the city will have the largest lawsuit
they have ever seen on their hands. I'll be the first in line.
Bob Moore,
Richmond
© The Ottawa Citizen 2005
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City's
'proactive' strategy for health protection in cases of
early-stage sewage forcemain leaks... is to deny any problem
exists
Bureaucratic
bungling worse than episodes of the Keystone
Cops, however, with public safety at stake ...no one is
laughing.
If it looks like sewage, and
smells like sewage, and cultures positive for E.coli
...shouldn't someone investigate until the source is found?
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If it
melted this hole in the Jock River's ice... |
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and, if it
looks and smells like sewage... |
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...and if two independent
laboratory-tested samples have confirmed the presence of
E.coli bacteria, (which they have)...
What is the
City waiting for?
The City is refusing to
investigate the source of this steady flow of warm 'mystery
fluid' coming from direction of Richmond's, frequently leaking
and rupturing, decrepit Richmond-to-Glen Cairn sewage
forcemain.
Yet,
recent massive ruptures of the same forcemain, in the same
location, have yielded evidence that they had previously
started as slow leaks ..."weeks to months" earlier .
Could there
be a competentcy issue here...
or more?
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