Well, now we know why the Atlantic Avenue Sewage Treatment Plant failed on May 28.
Not that it took a genius to figure it out.
Too much rain over too short a period of time overwhelmed the system and led to massive flooding.
The fix?? An emergency bypass channel and faster screen cleaning times are what’s being recommended.
The cost is $1.4 million.
The trouble is this solution, even if it had been in place last May, would not have prevented the sewage back-up disaster that destroyed so many basements in Thunder?Bay. It would only have protected the plant itself.
The question that needs answering is why the sewer system overflowed, what, if anything, the city could have done to prevent it and how we can ensure it never happens again.
The bigger question is did the city have any inkling that something like this could potentially happen.
That’s the $500-million question proponents of a pair of class-action lawsuits are going to want answered, should their action be certified and make it to court.
From the city’s perspective, how big a weather event should the city build its infrastructre to withstand??As council heard Monday night, this was a once-in-a-lifetime storm, precipitated by days of rain that saturated the ground and gave the water nowhere to go. There will be no easy answers.
