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Eight Raw Sewage Spills in 2013

Tuesday, 15 July 2014 at 10:22

Oxford County's manager of water services says one spill resulted in procedural changes.

Oxford County says there were eight minor raw sewage spills in 2013 across the county's wastewater infrastructure due to pumping station overflows and pipe failures both inside county facilities and on a main sewer line.

The public works department published the details in its annual wastewater treatment plant report, presented at a county council meeting on Wednesday last week.

The most significant spill, about 925 cubic metres, occurred at the Tavistock William Street sewage pumping station on April 19 to 20.

"There was some equipment failure at the plant, which can happen and we have back-ups to deal with that, but the problem in this case was in conjunction with [the equipment failure] there was also a communication failure at the plant," Deborah Goudreau, the county's manager of water services said.

"The alarms that we have at all of our facilities to let us know whenever something fails, those alarms were not communicated to us," she said.

It was a concerned citizen that noticed the spill and informed the county. The county's ensuing investigation revealed a damaged telephone line prevented the alarm from alerting officials.

Goudreau says the spill was reported to the Ministry of the Environment and the county implemented maintenance procedures to prevent future spills, including testing alarms and pumps and their associated communications equipment.

The report says the other seven sewage spills were less than 17 cubic metres each. 

  • Three spills in Woodstock, Tavistock and Norwich were the result of major rain storms. 
  • Two spills in Embro and one in Innerkip occurred within county sewage facilities when piping was damaged due to high pressure.
  • A forcemain leak in Thamesford meant the county asked residents to minimize use, restore the line and dispose of contaminated soil.

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