• Where will all of this end?

• Why would any right-thinking ratepayer trust the city ...after all of this?  (See below)

• The City cannot give any sound rationales for its choice of a riskier, more expensive,
  forcemain-lagoon option, in spite of being asked, repeatedly, to provide them.

• Councillor Stavinga's pipeline-lagoon obsession defies all informed opinion on how to best protect public safety, and the environment. She is destroying the Jock River with delays caused by her political agenda ... working at cross-purposes to the public interest.  (See bottom of page)

	LAGOON LEAKAGE is an ONGOING problem.   South-East corner of Munster's Lagoon property, (North side of Copeland Road) in April. This occurs, due to the side-wall leaks, every time the lagoons are filled to the brim. (Documented in, 1996, ESR.)

Looking From Copeland Road towards Munster Road. Leaking Lagoons are to left ... (just follow the green slime). The RMOC/City of Ottawa has been a terrible steward of the Environment! Why should they be trusted with MORE LAGOONS?

Region has a long track-record of poor trusteeship of the lagoons...

REPEATED LAGOON SPILLS... Photograph was taken at 2:00 pm, Tuesday, March 18th 1997, as flows subside. Sewage had been pumping over the lagoon top since 6:00 pm, Monday the 17th.

Munster area residence have experienced a long history of lagoon over-toppings (onto surrounding private lands, and private sump holes). The RMOC was sued $30,000 by MOE (a mere tap on the wrist) on this third occasion (March 17, 1997).

One nearby resident had the same "muddy-green" sewage appear in their basement sump hole during this episode. Laboratory test results from sampling, on March 19th, were: E.Coli: 21,000, Phosphorus: 1.95 mg /L, and NH3: 11.9 mg /L.

By March 24th, the Copeland Road ditch flow was much less coloured, but laboratory results were still high at: Fecal Coliforms: 11,000, E. Coli: 370, Phosphorus: 0.13, Nitrate: 0.36 mg /L.

CLICK HERE, or on Thumbnail to show other views of spill:

SUMMER OVER-SPRAYING: After any 3/4" rainfall, or any four hours of spraying, 'suds' start to appear in the road-side ditch, leading to the Jock River. This is because the spray field is permanently saturated, and has no additional retention capacity.

 Over-spraying, causing regular run-offs to Jock River ---throughout the spraying season.

Suds plume continues down-stream, in the Jock River, from where the Copeland Road ditch empties Munster's poorly treated lagoon effluent into the river. This photo was taken in 2001. To see how much the River quality  had degraded by summer of 2003, go to the photo at the very bottom of this page!

Region / City has always sprayed, regardless of wind speed.
Operational regulations require that that spray-irrigation must not occur when winds exceed 15 km. / hour. Spraying of the sewage effluent has habitually continued regardless of wind speed ...even on days windy enough to put fine spray on windshields of automobiles on Copeland Road. OMB heard Evidence from a farmer, who, driving his tractor on Copeland Road, got caught in the spray. Witness was asked what he did. Reply: "I kept on going, but you can be sure I didn't lick my lips." Other problems  ---depending on wind direction--- of offensive lagoon odour blowing up to Munster (but more frequently, across the Munster Road. During shad-fly season, both the odour, and shad-flies on the windshields, are annoying, unwholesome, and unaesthetic.

There is also documented evidence, (with dates and photographs), of spray irrigation occurring while it was raining, and when the ground was impervious, due to frost. All three of these practices are in strict violation of the MOE Certificate of Approval, (granted in 1970).
How could ratepayers possibly ever trust the City (or MOE), in the future, when these practices continue?

The Region's 1993: "Long Term Upgrading" ...was a 'bust'.
Totten-Simms Hubicki worked on a "long term" solution, costing over $2.5M, to do sewer pipe sealing in Munster, and construct a 5th Lagoon.  (CLICK HERE) (City has not provided the requested file.)

The Munster collector system...
still infiltrates badly, from groundwater, (see chart).

The Newest Lagoon (5th lagoon) was build in 1993:
The new, clay-lined, lagoon was filled, for the first time, in April of 1998. By May, of the same year, this modern-age, "state-of-the-art", 5-year-old lagoon had leaked to complete emptiness, again, all into the Copeland Road Ditch ...and straight to the Jock River. The MOE simply looked the other way, while this major environmental spill occurred. What sort of confidence should residents have for any future lagoon reconstruction?

Resident's conclusions (in 1996) - in face of the facts :
Most residents who studied the (1996)-Totten-Simms Hubicki Environmental Study Report (ESR), were against the preferred option (of a Lagoon and Spray Irrigation Field Expansion) ---for all of the above reasons. Several residents were concerned that the selected expansion site was known to likely be too wet--- and became very suspicious that the hydro-geological evaluation of the subject field was to be left to the post-award of contract stage. (Later hydro-geologic work proved that the land was, indeed, unsuitable as a spray-irrigation field.)
Other red flags in the study:
         a.)  The study claimed that, "It is not known whether or not the subject field is under-  drained with agricultural drainage". (It was well known that the field was tile-drained, and residents became suspicious when it appeared, the authors of the study had not bothered to inspect the clearly visible drainage outlets, or ask the owner.)
         b.)  Another suspicious area was that approximately eight parcels of private land had to be acquired, and the total land acquisition allowance was only $200,000. The very first parcel (25-acres) cost the Region in the neighbourhood of $249,000, and it was common belief that the largest parcel would probably not sell for less than $750,000. Therefore, estimates appeared to be too low by about a factor of 10 or 15.
         c.)  Also, the 1/2-Million-Dollar, Environmental Study Report (ESR), (page 85): stated, unequivocally, that a high level of treatment (in an on-site treatment plant) could not be achieved. However, as The Munster Lagoon Watchdog Committee, and other concerned residents independently started doing their homework, they began to understand that technologies had improved so quickly, that there was a real possibility that something outstanding could be done in this area, and for very little cost. We, lay people, felt that "If we could see this, then, it was a 'no-brainer' that the engineering experts would soon uncover the same data ...and swiftly come to the same conclusions. But as we looked forward to the benefits of the new advances in technology, the new consulting engineers did a u-turn, and regressed back to the old, expensive, pipeline-lagoon 'rut' (of 50 years ago).

(Small engineering detail: If an engineering project for a pipeline-lagoon installation costs five times more than an on-site mechanical treatment plant, then the engineers get paid five times more!)

Our thoughts, at this stage - (August - 2003):
Munster and area residents have no reason for confidence, that ANY sort of lagoon facility construction and maintenance could be trustworthy ---especially, when one considers the City's track record, to-date. The City has shown us, the kind of environmental stewards that they are. We have experienced, first hand ---over the last thirty years--- how they handled the operation and maintenance of a lagoon facility. Residents do not want a pipeline-lagoon facility. ...A lagoon ...is a lagoon: it doesn't belong in close proximity to Munster, on a sloping, fractured rock base, close to the sensitive (Policy-2) Jock River.

Now, with the increasing incidence of West Nile Virus disease, in the Ottawa area, open sewage lagoons in close proximity to family housing ...creates far to much risk to Munster families. There is absolutely no reason or excuse for this needless exposure to risk. The lagoons must be removed for the health and safety of Munster residents.

Lagoon Decommissioning: CLICK HERE

FOOTNOTE TO THE ABOVE: Janet Stavinga has followed, in lock-step, with the City-staff agenda, and the isolated, flawed advice of only ONE consulting engineering firm, (Conestoga-Rovers and Associates), who had recommended the pipeline option: against compelling evidence of THREE other firms who recommended AGAINST the pipeline. Ms. Stavinga (and City staff), have consistently ignored the anti-pipe recommendations of the THREE other engineering consultant firms, hired by the Municipality. This was despite evidence of an overwhelming risk-reward ratio AGAINST the pipeline. Ms. Stavinga appears to have no regard for the constant (needless) health threat posed by the pressurized rupture-prone sewage forcemain, nor for its 500% higher cost. Residents are at a total loss to understand the "justification-thought-process" behind such apparent madness.

Our Message To the City:
It's time to go back to its 1998 promise of a High Technology Treatment Plant, on a Design Build (Operate) basis, as was in the 1998 Requests for Proposals, (with all the SCADA remote sensing system, bells-and-whistles, to safeguard proper operation), in order to save tax dollars, and provide a higher level of treatment: LOCALLY.

What Munster Residents Asked for in February, 1998:  CLICK HERE
Munster Survey in April, 2002:  CLICK HERE

Richmond Survey in July, 2002:  CLICK HERE

Costs to date - (August, 2003): ALREADY OVER $15,000,000 ---and counting--- with nothing to show for it!
And the City appears to be continuing to make all the wrong moves, wasting more time and more money, and getting more entangled in a legal morass, that is certain to continue for years longer ---as long as the City tries to press ahead with its unsafe sewage forcemain fixation, routed through Richmond's shallow aquifer, requiring continued use of open sewage cesspools in Munster.

Who could possibly be benefiting by such a scheme, at the ridiculous price tag of $17,000,000, when an environmentally-friendly, safe, local Mechanical Treatment alternative ---requiring NO LAGOONS--- can economically do the job, at a capital cost of under $4,000,000? (Rhetorical question.) Operation and Maintenance Costs, with the Mechanical Treatment Plant are substantially lower, as well.

Since Councillor Stavinga does not appear to be working in the public interest, for the health and safety of Richmond and other residents, or for the health of the environment, or for the wise use of the tax dollars of all taxpayers of Ottawa...  Who IS she working for?

While Councillor Janet Stavinga makes bogus pronouncements about the "risk" of allowing 0.03 mg./L Phosphorus to enter the Jock River from a proposed Mechanical Treatment Plant, (something the Ministry of Environment accepts as its "Policy 2" standard), the local Jock River environment continues to degrade, year-after-year, with sewage lagoon run-off: in the 2.0 mg./L Phosphorus range. Locals are now calling the Stavinga-caused algae blooms: "Stavinga-Slime".