WOW BUT A LOCAL CIVIL ENGINEER SURE GIVES THE REGION OF WATERLOO (RMOW) A SMACK UPSIDE THE HEAD

 

Good for the Record (& Terry Pender) in publishing this story describing the opinions of Barbara Robinson, civil engineer, and former chief engineer for the City of  Kitchener. The title of the story is "Waterloo Region water supply source of angst and debate". She has let it be known clearly that the Region (RMOW) are asleep at the switch in not having expert staff in regards to sanitary sewers within the Region.

Her claim, which makes sense to me, is that there are massive inflows of clean water into the sanitary sewers all of which require treatment prior to discharge to the Grand River, Canagagigue Creek, Speed River etc. Here in Woolwich Township which I fondly call Dogpatch there has been an ongoing battle allegedly against  I & I otherwise known as Inflow & Infiltration. The problem of course here is that all the spokespersons and governance bodies are so used to lying to the public that who knows if what they say is truthful or mere wishful thinking. 

We have been told by them that large parts of the Birdland subdivision had their roof eavetroughs  connected to the sanitary sewers. Allegedly this has caused, especially during wet weather, massive inflows of clean water to the Elmira Sewage Treatment Plant . Again allegedly we are advised that there was (is?) an ongoing program to disconnect these roof drains (i,e, eavetroughs) from the subsurface sanitary sewer pipes. 

If this is for real then kudos to our local engineering department and councillors who invested in that program.  Now Barbara Robinson has also suggested that some catchbasins in the Region have been incorrectly connected to sanitary sewer pipes versus to storm sewer pipes. I can certainly understand how bad that would be as far as exacerbating high flows into the Sewage Treatment Plants (STP).  Other problems include laterals running from homes to the sanitary sewers buried underneath roadways. If there are leaks in those laterals then again rainwater or high shallow groundwater (i.e. water table0 could also infiltrate into the laterals this preventing it recharging local aquifers and overloading STPs.

Wouldn't that be ironic if Dogpatch (Woolwich) were actually ahead of the curve on these issues? Unfortunately it wouldn't make the Region (RMOW) look very smart if they are actually lagging behind Dogpatch.