City of Toronto now sending out sewage bypass alerts
Sewage piles up near the mouth of the Humber River. July, 2013. Photo by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.
In July of 2014, Waterkeeper filed a request to the province to bring sewage bypass alerts to Toronto. The city notifies the Ministry of Environment every time a wastewater treatment plant bypasses, but those alerts are not made public.
Fast forward three years later and Toronto, as of this month, is finally sending out public notifications for bypasses.
The city sent out the first alert for a bypass this past Saturday on June 17, and did so again this morning for bypasses occurring at Humber and Ashbridges Bay treatment plants.
The twitter account @311Toronto sends out tweets every time a bypass is occurring, and when it ends. See below for what that tweet looks like.
Severe rain causes bypass @#CityofTO ABTP wastewater plant. Wastewater treated per prov. regs. https://t.co/DNHSyhK9Lw
— 311 Toronto (@311Toronto) June 23, 2017
And here is what they tweet when it ends:
Regular operations resume at #CityofTO CityofTOHumber wastewater plant. Learn more about wastewater treatment: https://t.co/DNHSyhsyTY
— 311 Toronto (@311Toronto) June 17, 2017
Our sewage bypass log will continue to be populated with data (length of bypass and volume discharged) the moment we get it.