Kincardine council received an updated report on drinking water management in the municipality.
Environmental Services Manager Mark O’Leary submitted the report, which included staff completing a Drinking Water Quality Management System management review as of March 10th.
The report included the annual reports for the municipality’s different sites – Armow, Kincardine, Scott Point, Tiverton, and Underwood, which were submitted to the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Parks (MECP).
During discussions, Councillor Mike Hinchberger asked about an overflow bypass event that took place at the Maple Street Pumping Station in Tiverton, which happened March 7-8th.
The report outlines that 411 cubic metres of sewage and storm water entered the environment due to rains and heavy snow melt.
Hinchberger asked what the result of the samples taken after the bypass overflow revealed.
O’Leary shared, “The samples were fairly minute with the exception of the e. coli limit, which was really high.
He added, “The substantial weather event made staff actually have to collect the sample out of the sewage wet well, which may have spiked those results, because the creek was so high it was unsafe to actually get to the overflow pipe and collect what I would consider was a representative sample.”
O’Leary shared that should housing development around the Maple Street Pumping Station were to increase, then the Environmental Services team would request council to approve a future budget allotment for upgrades to the pumping station, which would include bigger pumps to handle additional volume.
A month prior, the Municipality of Kincardine had to mitigate a bypass event of the Bruce Energy Centre lagoons, where just under 91 cubic metres of partially treated sewage had bypassed the UV Disinfection system over a span of 4 hours and 18 minutes.
The report indicates that the bypass was caused by extremely cold weather, which caused the UV equipment to freeze and sound the alarm.
The samples collected showed that the bypassed sewage was within discharge limits.