No lingering effects expected after sewage discharged into Lake Erie near Colchester | CBC News

Mike McKay doesn’t expect any lingering environmental effects after the Town of Essex released sewage into Lake Erie because of heavy rainfall during late August storms.

The director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) says large bodies of water can accommodate some level of discharge — so long as it’s happening infrequently.

“If these events are minimal, I’m not too concerned about any long-term effects with the idea for people to stay away from the beach for that period immediately following these rain events should be good common sense to follow,” said McKay, whose research group is with the University of Windsor.

Regardless of whether or not there’s been a sewage bypass into a watercourse, McKay suggests people avoid swimming recreationally for about 48 hours following a significant rainfall event. 

“It’s not necessarily all going to be coming from bypass events at wastewater plants. Also, just the runoff from fields and such into the tributaries that flow into our lakes can cause problems.”

“We hear about beaches being closed because of elevated E.coli levels. That’s not necessarily because there’s been a wastewater bypass event into that vicinity.”

Parts of the municipality saw nearly 200 millimetres of rainfall in less than 24 hours.

The sewage system in parts of the municipality, including the Colchester area, is a series of pipes and pump stations, and also comprised of lagoons — one of which is to the west of the small southwestern Ontario village.

It swelled to 14 times the amount of wastewater it’s designed to hold during the storm, according to Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy.

And, at that point, she says, the town decided to relieve the pressure by discharging partially treated sewage into the lake and avoid more residents having it back up into their homes — a move she said was taken for the first time in the municipality’s history.

“And unfortunately, even though we did discharge it into the lake, we still have quite a few homes that got sanitary back up and some folks just lost everything even the best backflow valves were not able to withstand the pressure from the sewage,” said Bondy. 

“It would have been more. It would have been a majority of the homes. Now it’s still quite a few homes, unfortunately.”

Bondy says some residents’ insurance companies didn’t cover all, or any, of the damage — which was “quite extensive” in some areas.

Ontario’s ministry of the environment, conservation and parks says Essex properly, and promptly, notified its spills action centre and other necessary health and environmental related authorities.

“During the most recent significant weather event, the Town of Essex along with other nearby communities in the Essex County area did report incidents of bypasses and overflows,” said communications spokesperson Gary Wheeler, in an emailed statement.

The response went on to state that modern treatment plant approvals, “including the treatment plant located in the Essex County area, require that bypasses and overflows are disinfected and monitored,” and that results are submitted to the ministry for review.

McKay with GLIER says diverting wastewater isn’t uncommon, it’s more a matter of how frequently it’s happening — especially when sewage systems and treatment plants are saturated with rain and capacity issues like what occurred in Essex.

“For example, in Toronto, a couple of major wastewater treatment plants 10 to 15 times per year, have these so-called bypass events where some of the wastewater is diverted around, usually the secondary treatment component. There’s disinfection typically at the wastewater. But there’s certainly some effluent that is discharged that’s not fully treated.”

Rainfall and damage ‘almost as bad as 1989 storm’

Sharron Sax and her family have been at their lakefront Lypps Beach home near Colchester since 1965.

She says their home had their crawlspace and some ductwork ruined, along with losing their furnace and air conditioner.

“So fortunately, we were here when it happened and unfortunately no insurance company would ensure this place for water and sewage back up on the lake. They just refused to take anything to do with water on the lake.”

According to Sax, any flooding they see is never from Lake Erie, it’s always from rainfall, and a nearby marsh and farmers’ fields.

“A lot of us have pumps installed in our yard with a pump in it that will pump yard water off into the lake, never getting inside or getting in the crawlspace … never being that much except for the storm in ’89 and this storm now.”

WATCH | 1989 Harrow flood revisted:

Here is CBC Windsor’s original piece on the 1989 Harrow Flood.

Sax says the 1989 flood was worse because of how it filled the main drainage ditches in Colchester.

“I mean, it took down trees that destroyed the drain. There was so much water.”

‘It does boil down to infrastructure’

McKay says although the goal is for a future with zero discharges into the Great Lakes with the existing infrastructure, however, with climate change that’s not a reality.

“It does boil it down to infrastructure. Removing combined sewer systems where both storm water and wastewater combined. That’s the old infrastructure. Those are particularly pressured when we have these intense rain events because it’s not just wastewater, but it’s also the rainwater that’s accumulating in your sewer system as well.” 

According to McKay, with storm events increasing in frequency that needs to be accounted for in models across the Great Lakes basin in determining infrastructure needs by municipalities and continued modifications.

“When we start seeing these 100 year rain events, within five or 10-year periods, those models have to be adjusted and we need to be looking at these — high or higher frequency of these major rain events occurring in the future. Bottom line, it’s going to cost money.”

Sax says there’s talk of nearby housing developments but she believes the first thing that’s needed is a new treatment plant in Colchester to deal with drainage issues.

“I think when they realize what’s going on the water and what’s going on with all these farmers’ fields that drain towards the lake, that they have to do more with infrastructure, they’re going to have to spend millions, really.”

Sax says she believes that not in her lifetime, but maybe her grandchildren’s children, that the area could be the flood of the north because of the planet getting warmer.

“We’re getting more storms, we’re getting more windstorms, more more rain. We’re just getting more of everything. And the winters are warmer, too.”

The Colchester-area lagoon system is currently undergoing an environmental assessment, according to mayor Bondy, for possible future development that would take some time.

“We have some interested developers looking to build 400 plus condos, but we don’t have the capacity for it. We know we need to improve and so maybe this will speed it up.”

She says there’s a lot of pressure from the province to grow but smaller municipalities aren’t seeing the financial support from Ontario.

“A sewage treatment plant is like $30 million … our current residents cannot afford to build for growth. We need help from the province to build for growth, or we need to just stop growing and take care of who we have here.”