Out of sight, out of mind

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/02/2024 (611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let us try to sell you on the value of a new city sewer system.

It’s an uphill battle for a downhill problem.

Right now, millions of litres of Winnipeg sewage are flowing downhill to the lowest point of nearby ground available — in this case, essentially the steady topographical dip where the Red River flows.

Two major sewage lines at the Fort Garry bridge, built in the 1970s, have failed, and the city is struggling to build a new temporary line to stem the flow.

That seems as typically Winnipeg as closing the Arlington Bridge — you’ve got a lot of reasons to suspect that things might not be going well, but you hang on until, suddenly, you can’t.

But there’s acute illness and chronic illness.

And the sewer collapse is an acute one. It should pass: the other most likely will not. The chronic sewer issue is more important, and, frankly, less likely to get attention or a real fix any time soon.

Winnipeg has been spilling sewage into inland rivers consistently, much of it the result of older combined storm sewer/sanitary sewer systems, where sudden rainfall from intense weather systems overwhelms city sewage treatment plants, causing them to dump raw sewage to stay in operation.

The solution for that regular — and illegal under federal law — pollution is simple. Separate the sanitary and storm sewer systems. But that’s a job measured in billions of dollars. It isn’t going to happen unless and until someone forces Winnipeg to do it.

Think about this.

If you were sailing your medium-sized sailboat across Lake Winnipeg without a holding tank for sewage from your on-board toilet, you could face charges. Or this: if the Red River-adjacent septic system behind your house was drooling unmentionable stinking goo down into the water, you could face charges as well.

But Winnipeg? There might be posturing about sewage spills and the potential for legal charges, federally or provincially, but it’s a mug’s game. Any fines that get levied wouldn’t come from decision makers, but from the general public. And that would just take more money away from the pool potentially available to fix the problem.

And there is, frankly, no real civic or political will to get around to solving it.

Sewage work is in many ways as much of a sunk cost as emergency home electrical work. You can spend the money — you may actually have to spend the money — but it isn’t ever coming back. Not even in the form of any sort of political credit.

Your insurance company might like your new sewer line backflow valve and the fact you’ve pulled out and replaced all the scary old knob-and-tube wiring, but all that work is hidden away in the walls and the basement.

No one’s going to fall in love with it, the way they might fall in love with a new kitchen, an open concept living room and a backyard “divinely landscaped for summer entertaining.”

Things hidden in the walls just ain’t sexy.

Neither is sewer work. It isn’t going to sell the city to tourists or to new businesses that might want to locate here.

If you think it’s hard to interest all but the most peculiar of prospective homebuyers by showing them just how fantastic the electrical box looks, just use your imagination to consider how hard it might be to interest them in the state of sewage infrastructure buried deep beneath the street in front of your house.

Or to convince them that the hidden pipe out there is worth the new higher tax bill your property is going to have to carry to pay for it.

Back to that uphill battle for a downhill problem.

Are you ready now to spend the money?

Didn’t think so.

And that is the real shame.