“It’s just not a welcoming place to see all that debris in the water and you can’t see all the bacteria in the water,” Madeline Buzzi with Swim Drink Fish told CTV News Toronto. Swim Drink Fish spent Tuesday collecting water samples along Toronto Harbour, monitoring pollution levels in the lake after the storm. “A lot of things that people flush down the toilet that probably shouldn’t end up in the water,” he said. On Monday, the city closed several public beaches, including Marie Curtis Park East Beach, Sunnyside Beach, Center Island Beach and Woodbine Beaches, to swimming due to high levels of E. coli. Within the city’s centuries-old infrastructure, some systems have only one pipe that carries both stormwater and sewage. This can cause combined sewer overflows during heavy storms. “The problem is that if during a heavy rain these sewers fill up and if they have nowhere to go, they will eventually back up into people’s homes, businesses and street, so all combined sewers are designed to overflow into the lake. stream and river,” Bill Shea, director of distribution and collection with Toronto Water, told CTV News Toronto. According to the city, between 20 and 25 percent of sewer systems are combined. “When we have sewage and harmful debris in our waters it hurts the things that live in the water and it hurts us in turn,” said Isabel Fleisher, Swim Drink Fish monitoring coordinator. “We really need more transparency on where, when and why sewage is entering our water, because we need to know so that Torontonians can have better access to water and we can better protect the environment,” Fleischer said. Swim Drink Fish is calling for better wastewater monitoring and a warning system to alert residents when a combined pipeline overflows into the lake. “This will provide transparency about where, when and under what conditions sewage water enters the water,” Fleshier said. “It helps the public by letting them know where you could go into the water.” The City of Kingston has an online alert system that includes a real-time map that lets residents know where and when flooding is occurring. It’s a measure that officials in Toronto have explored but found to be too costly. “Our infrastructure is quite complex and it’s hard to get to some of these areas where you can actually measure, so we’ve looked at it several times in the past and estimated it’s between $10 million and $20 million a year to do that and define everything,” Shea said. Instead, the city decided to spend that money on improving its stormwater and sewer systems. Swim Drink Fish believes monitoring and warning measures could help the city target problem areas for infrastructure improvement. The city advises against swimming in the lake during and 48 hours after a heavy rainfall Swim Drink Fish says people should be more careful about what they flush down their drains and toilets.
