Southwest Winnipeg residents asked to limit water use as sewage continues to spill into Red River

The City of Winnipeg is asking residents in southwest Winnipeg to reduce their water flow, as sewage continues to spill into the Red River near Fort Garry Bridge after a pipe broke earlier this month.

In order to limit flows into the system, residents and businesses are being asked to only flush toilets when necessary, take shorter showers and avoid baths, run only full loads of laundry or dishes, hold off washing their cars, and turn off taps when shaving or brushing their teeth, the city said in a news release on Tuesday.

The request applies in St. Norbert, Fort Richmond, Richmond West, Waverley West, Bridgwater, Linden Woods, Linden Ridge, Whyte Ridge, Waverley Heights and at the University of Manitoba.

The sewage spill started on Feb. 7, when one of the two pipes that cross the Red River at 3100 Abinojii Mikanah (formerly Bishop Grandin Boulevard) broke.

The pipes, built in 1970, carry sewage to the South End Sewage Treatment Plant. The city found a leak in one of them during a routine inspection last November.

It took that pipe out of service, leaving the other pipe to handle sewage flow across the river.

On Feb. 5, the city started working on a bypass system, made up of temporary new pipes.

But two days later, with the bypass system still not finished, the remaining working pipe broke, releasing sewage into the river.

The total amount of untreated sewage that had flowed into the river as of Tuesday was 221.2 million litres, the city's daily online spill updates say.

The city has sped up its work on the bypass system and though it's been running since Feb. 17, it's not fully complete — only one of two new pumps is running — so sewage continues to flow into the river.

The other pump is undergoing tests to fix mechanical issues found by crews last week.

The city says the amount of sewage being spilled "has gone down considerably," but the flow through the sewer varies during the day, and during peak flow times, the single bypass pump does not always keep up.

When this happens, the excess flow in the sewer is spilled into the river, the release says.

The daily release totals have declined from a peak of 31.6 million litres on Feb. 10 to about 6.5 million litres over the past few days.

Nevertheless, the ongoing spill has led the city to ask southwest residents to limit their water use.

Janet Tyson, who lives in the Fort Richmond area, supports the idea of conserving water if it will solve the problem.

"I would conserve water, yes … anything to keep our water pure, and also if you're looking for ways to do it, I am all for it," she told CBC News on Tuesday evening. "I mean, drinking water is our source of living."

'It will be tough'

Evan Erickson, who also lives in the area, says the sewage spill is concerning and hopes the city fixes the problem soon.

Conserving water will be difficult, he said.

"We use a lot of water washing our clothes, washing the dishes, so yeah, it will be tough, but I guess we have to, but I wouldn't like it."

It's expected the second pump will be operating by the end of the week, the city said.

The job has been complicated by the fact that crews would normally be able to run equipment through a series of tests before putting it into operation, but they "have had to make constant adjustments in real time, and it's incredibly delicate work," said Tim Shanks, the director of the city's water and waste department, in the news release.

The work would normally take upwards of five weeks, but the crews have "been considerably expediting efforts to stop the leak," said Shanks.