Atikokan challenging MoE order to pump sewage onto streets

It’s the latest bizarre turn of events in a decade-long dispute over the Atikokan sewer system.
The Ministry of Environment has ordered the township to pump raw sewage directly onto the streets of Atikokan. Not surprisingly, the township is fighting the order.
“Compliance with the director’s order will empty the Atikokan sewers onto the streets of Atikokan,” reads the township’s notice of appeal.
“Compliance with the order endangers the health of the residents of Atikokan,” it stresses.
The Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) will hear the township’s appeal of the MoE director’s order here starting next month.
The hearings begin with a preliminary session on Monday, May 17 at 10 a.m. in Council Chambers, at which any resident of Atikokan (and, most likely, any resident downstream of the Atikokan River) will be able to petition to become a party to the hearings.
The hearings themselves will get underway July 12.
The director’s order was issued Jan. 5 under the Ontario Water Resources Act.
The 13-page document essentially orders the township and OCWA to co-operate in taking a number of steps to prevent the sewer system from being overwhelmed when water flows are heavy.
When the sewer system gets overwhelmed, the sewage ends up being discharged into the Atikokan River. If the sewer system backs up, the sewage ends up forcing its way back into homes.
The MoE director, Ed Bons, ordered the township and OCWA to monitor the weather and, when conditions warrant, have in place a system to divert sewage at several OCWA-owned sewer pumping stations.
The system would be “trash pumps,” complete with generators if necessary, to pump the sewage out of the sewer system and onto the streets.
The MoE’s rationale appears to be that it is better to pump sewage onto the streets than to have it end up in the river or, in some cases, backing up into homes.
The township appealed the ruling on a dozen different grounds, covering both the director’s authority to issue the order and the reasonableness of the order.
In addition to the health risks pumping sewage into the streets presents, the appeal argued that the director’s order failed to consider the progress the township has made in making its part of the sewer system safe.
Since the sewer back-ups of the 1990s, the township has improved its part of the system to such a degree that it is confident the weak points now are in OCWA-owned facilities.
The township asks why the streets of Atikokan should be polluted because OCWA’s facilities aren’t up to snuff.
“There is ample evidence of bypassing [sewage ending up in the river or homes] at the OCWA-owned pump stations,” says the township’s appeal.
“There is no evidence, since the summer rain storm and river flooding of 1993 and 1996, of Atikokan sewage collection sewers surcharging and causing basement flooding.
“[But] there is ample evidence of surcharging in the OCWA-operated pump stations.
“Atikokan cannot access OCWA-owned and controlled pump stations,” it notes.