The City of Toronto is investigating a sewage leak in the west end after reports from residents put off by the discovery of foul fluid bubbling onto the street from sanitary sewers.
Last month, a micro-tunnelling boring machine was removed from beneath Old Mill Drive, after being entangled in steel tie-backs from construction on a couple of nearby condominiums.
The piece of machinery was trapped for a year and a half and the cost of removing it went from an initial estimate of $9 million to $25 million.
Resident Tanya Boswick tells Global News the sewage flows started during the summer and got worse after the boring machine was freed.
“It’s almost like a little fountain, and as the water comes up, you see visible excrement in it,” she described.
The construction in their neighbourhood originally began as a storm sewer project to stop localized basement flooding.
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That work still has yet to be completed, and residents have been left crying foul and filthy.
In a statement, the city says there have been some “recent challenges with the sanitary sewer,” which transports wastewater released from toilets, drains, and sinks to a wastewater treatment plant in the area.
It adds that in order to retrieve the boring machine, the city’s contractor had to stabilize the surrounding ground using grout.
“It is possible but not confirmed that during the process of stabilizing the ground, some of the grout made its way into the sanitary sewer which, combined with other external material, is creating a blockage and causing the sanitary sewer to back up,” the statement continues.
Boswick says the problem is beyond pungent. She tells Global News the sewage eventually runs into the nearby Humber River.
“Why does it take five incidents of raw sewage rolling down our street for them to send a street cleaning crew, for them to take this seriously? It should have been taken seriously the first time it happened,” she said during an interview on Wednesday.
The city says staff are actively investigating the cause of the backup using CCTV cameras in the area’s sanitary sewers that run between Bloor Street West and Etienne Brule Park. Global News is told staff are also flushing and cleaning the sanitary sewer system to help reduce the smell and risk of more backups.
“When the project started, I had a newborn, and now I have a two-year-old. I really hope that they’ll finish this project before she turns three at the end of 2024,” said Boswick.
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