Swim Drink Fish Blog
Read the latest updates and news releases about community science, water monitoring, Artists for Water, and more.
Toronto residents need alerts when City dumps sewage into Lake Ontario, argues Waterkeeper in new legal application (Press Release)
For Immediate Release - The City of Toronto has a sewage problem that could affect public health says Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. The organization’s co-founders filed a legal application with the Province of Ontario today asking the city to issue alerts when it bypasses sewage into public waterways.
Toronto has a sewage bypass problem - the argument for a sewage alert protocol in Toronto
On July 7, 2014, Mark Mattson and Krystyn Tully of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper filed a request to the province of Ontario to bring sewage bypass alerts to Toronto. If successful, Torontonians would be alerted every time the city dumps sewage into public waters (about three times a month). Here's our case.
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Are you a recreational water user in Toronto? We need your help.
Is Toronto weakening its rules against industrial pollution?
Changes to city by-law would make it easier for Toronto industry to flush arsenic, mercury, lead, PCBs and other nasty pollutants down the drain. When the city’s system overflows - like it did on Wednesday night - these pollutants end up in Lake Ontario.
Waterkeeper supporters help us beat our fundraising goal for Toronto sewage project
We set a fundraising goal of $10,000. To date, you have helped us raise $17,547. Thank you so much for your support. Your contribution will help Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s efforts to make it mandatory for the City of Toronto to alert the public when there is a sewage spill.
Confirmed: Toronto dumped 1-billion litres of sewage after July storm
It will take years to fix Toronto’s infrastructure problems. We know that. We also know that public health should be protected in the meantime. One of the first steps is better public reporting. We think it’s outrageous that you aren’t informed about sewage spills so that you can take steps to protect your health. Cities like Kingston have started alerting the public. Toronto, the biggest city in the country, should be able to do the same.
Toronto water quality update: sample results are in
We have good news for Toronto Triathlon participants. Sample results there easily met Ontario water quality standards. E. coli was 15-20 and Total Coliform was between 60 and 90.
Things were not so good in the west end. Sunnyside Beach - the beach closest to the Humber River sewage treatment plant that lost power during the flood - had E. coli levels that were off the charts. Our testing method maxes out at 2,000 (20 times Ontario water quality standards for E. coli and 2 times higher for Total Coliform), so all we know is that we found "more than" 2,000 E. coli and Total Coliform there.
Toronto water quality warning
By now, you already know that a record-high amount of rain landed on the City of Toronto on Monday, July 8, 2013. In just two hours, we received a month's worth of rainfall. We had more rain in 7 hours than the infamous Hurricane Hazel brought back in 1954. That storm killed 81 people and forced Ontarians to rethink the way we build up urban areas near the water.
What you might not know is that many of the photos from the storm, the ones of people jumping in rain-filled park lagoons or wading through submerged streets, were not just photos of lots of rain. They were also photos of lots of sewage.
Sewage, a defence of Gord Perks, and why Marcus Gee is wrong
Sewage treatment plants are the largest surface water polluters on Lake Ontario. They are incredibly expensive for municipalities to manage. And our cities can't work without them.