Hamilton, Ont.’s, wastewater operations says a connection error that had crossed a sewer with a storm purge in a city centre neighbourhood has been fixed.
In a release, public works said “the realignment of the sewers” was completed around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, just two days after being discovered in a proactive inspection.
“Combined sewage is now flowing into the combined sewer on Myrtle Avenue and all appropriate blocking of the storm sewer has been completed,” a city spokesperson said in a release late Wednesday afternoon.
The misconnection, in an area around Rutherford and Myrtle, dates back to work done 26 years ago with 11 residential properties discharging the wastewater.
Collection staff and contractors are still on site, completing a temporary road restoration and cleanup.
The city says that work should be done by about 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
The cost associated with the fix, including excavation, repair and onsite vacuuming, has yet to be calculated.
Hamilton, Ont.’s, director of wastewater operations told Global News Tuesday that it’s still not known how much of the tainted wastewater went into the harbour over two and half decades but said an estimate should be available in a few days.
“But I mean, just for context, I would imagine that it’s probably about a fifth the size of what we saw with the sewage leak from last November,” Nick Winters said.
That spillage, in the Burlington and Wentworth Street area, discharged an estimated 337 million litres of sewage through a hole in a combined sewer pipe “made purposefully” in 1996.