Sewage dump, day 3: Montreal tests industrial wastewater
Construction work to repair major sewer interceptor ahead of schedule
The City of Montreal collected samples of industrial wastewater in Montreal East on Friday, to verify what's going into the sewers from industrial sites as the week-long dump of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River continues into its third day.
The controversial sewage dump is diverting as much as eight billion litres of untreated effluent into the river while a major sewer interceptor is repaired and upgraded.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said the results of earlier water tests for fecal matter should be known by late in the day Friday.
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More water samples coming
The results of other water quality tests will be announced over the next few days.
The City of Montreal said it would take samples from the St. Lawrence before, during and after the sewage dump.
The town of Longueuil on Montreal's South Shore has been conducting its own tests of drinking water and river water. The results have been normal so far, said the city.
"Following daily checks, it was confirmed that the water of the Longueuil agglomeration network is fit for consumption," said the City of Longueuil to the CBC in a statement.
"No changes were made to the way drinking water is treated, and no changes were detected in the quality of the water that flows into the river."
Longueuil said that it will continue to monitor its water quality levels several times a day over the period of Montreal's sewage dump.
Updates on interceptor repairs
Coderre told reporters that the construction work that began at midnight on Wednesday remains slightly ahead of schedule.
As of Friday, 34 of 56 deteriorated steel braces were removed from the sewer interceptor. These 15.7-metre corroded braces represented a risk and a nuisance to the drainage capacity of the interceptor, city engineers have explained.
After descending into Montreal's sewer system on Thursday, Coderre said he is confident that he made the right decision to go ahead with the repairs, even though it necessitated dumping eight billion litres of wastewater into the river.