The general manager of the agency that handles the city’s environmental assets says a “glitch” with their automation process is likely the reason billions of tonnes of sewage leaked into Chedoke Creek over four-plus years.
City of Hamilton Public Works boss Dan McKinnon says staff and a monitoring system they’ve been using for the last 25 years, called SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), are supposed to work in combination to detect anomalies like the open bypass gate in the sewer overflow tank that caused the 2014 leak.
However, McKinnon says something along that monitoring chain broke down, and the spill “went undetected for an extended period of time.”
“There’s routine maintenance, and there have been inspections of facilities,” said McKinnon.
“These facilities are large and complex and they are often in locations that are very difficult to get to. So what ends up happening is we rely on our systems.”
McKinnon says without the automation process, the city would likely have to have “10 times the staff” they now have monitoring the city’s water system.
“We probably have 150 different facilities that are flung all across this geographic area of the city of Hamilton,” said McKinnon.
“And if there’s any kind of a glitch in them with the process narrative or the automation or anything like that, sometimes it’s hard to detect.”
In a release on Wednesday, the City of Hamilton admitted 24 billion litres of sewage spilled into Chedoke Creek between January 2014 and July 2018.
Public Works said a bypass gate in the sewer overflow tank that should have been closed was open during that time period.
The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) confirmed to Global News they were made aware of the problem in July 2018 and said they are continuing to investigate the incident, as well as advising the city on the remediation of the Creek.
When asked about the city’s own investigation into what happened prior to the ministry’s involvement, McKinnon said he couldn’t say too much in light of the province’s probe into the event.
However, he believes it’s likely we’ll never really know why this happened.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know with 100 per cent certainty,” McKinnon said.
“I’m very confident or fairly confident that this was not sabotage.”
During Question Period at Queen’s Park on Thursday, Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MPP Sandy Shaw asked questions about why it took a year for the city and province to reveal the episode to the public.
Shaw asked Premier Doug Ford why the Minister of the Environment didn’t take action to ensure the public was made aware.
Minister of Energy Greg Rickford fielded that question and said it was “inappropriate” to discuss the topic due to the province’s investigation.
McKinnon told Global News that the decision to keep the matter between the city and province was to mitigate “risk management and liability.”
“The sole purpose for that is to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to protect the organization and the cooperation of the city of Hamilton — by extension the residents.”
McKinnon said he was “shocked” when he learned what happened and says the ordeal is “incredibly disheartening” for staff.
Many who come to work in Hamilton’s wastewater unit have a tremendous commitment to the environment, according to McKinnon.
“I can tell you that we’ve got a lot of folks who have come to this industry because they are environmentalists at heart,” McKinnon said, “Many of them are in training. Trained in environmental science and fundamental biology and things like that. ”
“It was an error that we all are extremely disappointed about.“
When asked about what Public Works can do about safeguarding the city from another similar incident, McKinnon said the solution likely involves more money and more staff.
“Ultimately, it comes down to money,” said McKinnon
“Whether it’s for monitors or whether it’s downstream sampling on a regular basis, water quality sampling, these are all good things that we would love to do. But there’s a lot of priorities that are competing for the same dollar.”
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