Winnipeg’s sewage pipes ‘falling apart at the seams’

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This article was published 13/02/2024 (611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An ongoing pipe leak that has so far sent 135.2 million litres of untreated sewage into the Red River is just one symptom of broader wastewater treatment woes, an environmental advocate says.

The spill highlights the need to improve aging pipes and other infrastructure without losing momentum on larger projects, such as the $2.336-billion upgrade to Winnipeg’s north end sewage treatment plant, which is already a decade behind schedule, said Alexis Kanu, an environmental scientist and executive director of the Lake Winnipeg Foundation.

“Essentially, we have a system that’s falling apart at the seams everywhere. We’re in a significant wastewater infrastructure deficit across all aspects of our system,” said Kanu.

While the city is seeking funding from senior levels of government to help pursue billions of dollars of sewage infrastructure upgrades, Kanu said it also needs a clear, updated wastewater strategy that promptly tackles all problem areas.

“For me, the No. 1 priority is phosphorous compliance at our city’s largest treatment plant (the north end) but then we have to look at all these other questions, aging infrastructure, pipes under the river that are leaking,” said Kanu.

The foundation leader called it “devastating” that the leak at the 3100 Abinojii Mikanah (Bishop Grandin Boulevard) outfall and river crossing pipe discharged such a massive amount of sewage between roughly 9 a.m. Feb. 7 and 12 a.m. Tuesday.

“We’ve got natural waterways in our city that are unsafe and I don’t think anyone wants that. I don’t think any of our city officials, any of our citizens want rivers that we treat like sewers. Those should be incredible assets for our city… (but) we’re all scared of getting a drop of river water on our skin,” said Kanu.

She stressed such infrastructure failures shouldn’t be deemed “business as usual.”

Winnipeggers also shouldn’t accept the fact the north end plant upgrade, which is designed to greatly reduce algae-promoting nutrients like phosphorous in the plant’s effluent, is still far from being completed. Its deadline was once set for 2014.

Kanu said that delay has allowed “undertreated” sewage to continue leaving the city’s largest treatment plant. On some days in December, phosphorous levels in effluent that leaves the plant were up to five times higher than the 1 mg/L limit the upgrade is expected to achieve, she noted.

“It’s horrible and that is multiplied over 100 million litres (of effluent) a day,” said Kanu.

Meanwhile, the current 135.2-million litre spill is linked to pipe issues that began in November, when a leak was detected in one high-density pipe under the river and another pipe was found to be in poor condition. That led the city to plan a bypass system to take both pipes out of service, wrote water and waste spokeswoman Lisa Marquardson, in an emailed statement.

However, the second pipe failed last week before that work could be completed, causing the spill. The sewage is expected to stop leaking out in the coming days, once the bypass begins operating, Marquardson noted.

The spill is significant but not the largest to date. In September 2002, before such spills were publicly reported, a mechanical failure at the north end plant caused 427 million litres of untreated sewage to be dumped into the Red River during a 57-hour period, wrote Marquardson.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said the city is investing in regular maintenance to protect its rivers and bolster its sewage system and already makes wastewater treatment a key budget priority.

“Some of our water and sewer pipes and infrastructure (are) very old and that’s why we’re needing to make these sizable, significant investments. It’s one of the reasons that we are undertaking right now, the most complicated, most costly capital project ever in Winnipeg’s history and that’s the north end sewage treatment plant (upgrade) … We’re doing, I think, as much as we can right now. I believe that,” said Gillingham.

The mayor stressed city council has promised more funding to prevent sewage spills in recent years, which includes increasing the budget to reduce combined sewer overflows from about $30 million per year to $45 million per year between 2024 and 2027.

“Diluted sewage into the river is something we’re trying to avoid, which is why, among other things, we’re making (these) investments,” said Gillingham.

Combined sewer overflows occur in older Winnipeg sewers that collect both precipitation and wastewater in a single pipe. Heavy rain or snow events can cause such pipes to overflow, which sent an estimated 27.5 billion litres of diluted sewage into local waterways in 2022.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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