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CITY
SAYS PIPELINE ◄ ---
►PUBLIC DEMANDS ON-SITE TREATMENT |
Public Open House (October 26,
2004) reported in...
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
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Transport
Trail Road contaminants by pipeline, consultant says
Vito Pilieci
The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday,
October 27, 2004
A new consultant's report says the best way
to deal with toxic leachate from the Trail Road waste facility is
to build a pipeline to carry the sludge to the city's main water
treatment plant.
The plan would include
construction of a sewage pipeline that would run from the Trail
Road facility, along Cambrian Road and then either south or north
on Jockvale Road -- bordering the Stonebridge Golf and Country
Club and the Stonebridge community -- where the pipe would tie in
with existing sewers and on to the Robert O. Picard Environmental
Centre.
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"Opening a sewer from
one end of the city to the other end of the city is
not containment," said Joe King, a member of the
Barrhaven Sewer Action Committee. The consultants "are
proposing a pipeline to take the worst stuff a
landfill has to offer."
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The consultants left to city
officials the decision about specifically where the pipes should
run. The Jockvale Road routes are the preferred ones.
Eight possible plans for dealing
with the waste were examined by the consultants. Running a close
second to the pipeline idea is a proposal to build a facility at
Trail Road to process the waste. The pipeline approach was
preferred as less expensive.
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Apart from cost, hundreds of
people who attended a meeting on the consultant's report yesterday
were fuming about the possibility a pipe carrying toxic waste
could be passing through their community.
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The report says it would cost
more then $8.2 million for a waste processing facility at the
site. A pipeline to carry the waste across town would cost $3.8
million. Annual operating costs of the two would be similar: an
on-site facility would cost about $604,000, while pumping the
waste across town would cost about $590,000.
Currently, the city spends more
than $500,000 annually to truck the waste to the city's water
treatment plant.
Waste processed on-site would
have to be more intensively treated: Leachate processed at the
Trail Road site would be dumped into the slow-moving Jock River,
while waste processed at the city's main treatment plant is sent
into the faster-moving Ottawa River.
Apart from cost, hundreds of
people who attended a meeting on the consultant's report yesterday
were fuming about the possibility a pipe carrying toxic waste
could be passing through their community.
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Although the consultants may have
chosen the pipeline as the preferred method of dealing with the
leachate, Councillor Jan Harder believes a Trail Road site
facility is the best plan. She told the meeting that while she
respects the decision of the consultants, she plans to lobby
councillors to support that plan.
She asked concerned citizens to
send her a letter, e-mail or fax and said the final decision is to
be made Nov. 23 by the planning and environment committee.
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Many feared the pipeline would
not be properly contained, and a heavy frost or construction work
could lead to a toxic spill.
"Opening a sewer from one end of
the city to the other end of the city is not containment," said
Joe King, a member of the Barrhaven Sewer Action Committee. The
consultants "are proposing a pipeline to take the worst stuff a
landfill has to offer."
Although the consultants may have
chosen the pipeline as the preferred method of dealing with the
leachate, Councillor Jan Harder believes a Trail Road site
facility is the best plan. She told the meeting that while she
respects the decision of the consultants, she plans to lobby
councillors to support that plan.
She asked concerned citizens to
send her a letter, e-mail or fax and said the final decision is to
be made Nov. 23 by the planning and environment committee.
"I need you to come out in large
numbers," she told the residents. She said the city has earmarked
$3 million to pay for treatment of Trail Road leachate.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2004
Meeting
Postscript:
At the very same time
that the public was attending the Trail Road Leachate Management
Meeting (above), and strongly voicing their safety concerns about
risks of forcemain breakage, it was known only to city
officials that another sewage forcemain had ruptured -just
six hours earlier- discharging, at full pumping volume, into the
Jock River, in what has NOW become...
the 6th forcemain rupture to occur at
Richmond.
Details on the Oct.
26, 2004, forcemain rupture
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