raw sewage line to Lake Erie

I was reading in the Reformer today that Norfolk is doing a study to see if a line can be run from Simcoe to Lake Erie for raw sewage to be dumped into the lake. The overflow has been dumped into the Lynn River but now there is too much. I am disgusted by this proposition, why can't we add on to the existing sewage treatment plants to treat this excess waste. With all of the new development that is being done in Port Dover, Simcoe and areas surely this has generated alot more property taxes for the area and why arent these developers contributing to the building and upkeep of the water treatment plants, if they wish to develop then they should be willing to pay a fee to upgrade the system, if this was done then there would be money in the coffers to upgrade when necessary, therefore we wouldnt have to have a lake full of e coli and human waste. I am sure tourists would be thrilled to hear that raw sewage is being pumped into the lake that they and their kids are swimming in. I wonder how many days there would be to swim or would the levels be too high and the Health Department would close the beach. I do not know why this was not planned for when all these building permits were issued, the growth has been planned for years and didn't begin yesterday, these surveys take years to develop and it seems to me that no one is looking ahead and planning for more population, every extra house or building means more water and sewage,so it seems to me like everyone was eager to have more development ( hence more taxes generated) but no one was looking at the larger picture to prepare for increased sewage capacity, so now we have a big problem which we shouldn't have at all if people looked at the big picture instead of looking at dollar signs.

Actually it is a treated sewage line.

The Lynn river at low summer flows can't take the planned increased flows from new housing and development.
Simcoe can't grow without more capacity.
The line won't end at the beach either-it will go out into the lake.
There are new sewage treatment plants being proposed as well, with improved treatment capabilities-the outfall is actually drinkable.
No I don't work for the county.
I did discuss this very subject with the Mayor last summer however.

Actually it is a treated sewage line.

The Lynn river at low summer flows can't take the planned increased flows from new housing and development.
Simcoe can't grow without more capacity.
The line won't end at the beach either-it will go out into the lake.
There are new sewage treatment plants being proposed as well, with improved treatment capabilities-the outfall is actually drinkable.
No I don't work for the county.
I did discuss this very subject with the Mayor last summer however.

drinkable sewer water, awsome stuff! There is nothing clean or good about it no matter what ya say and what about the things living in the lakes and creeks?

One of my fav things is fishin out in the lake, you mean to tell me im gonna be catching fish swimming in my own crap?

It's no secret that Simcoe has been already letting "treated" sewage down the Lynn River into the lake, but also when capacity runs high, there's a limited amount of untreated that flows down. I wonder just how "far" the line will run out into the lake? Just because the "treated" sewage goes to some point in the lake doesn't mean it won't find it's way to the beach. But Norfolk County doesn't care, as they believe that Simcoe is the tourist mecca of Norfolk County. Maybe the County should build an indoor pool in Dover as compensation.

At least we do treat ours, much of Quebec City's sewage goes into the St.Lawrence untreated. There are a lot of US cities that do the same thing.
All a sewage plant does is remove the solids from the liquids. There is a max. level of solids allowed. This is then sterilized and sent out. The new plants being built have more effective filtering, use UV light for sterilization instead of chlorine, and are adding units to remove phosphates. By definition drinkable.
Essentially cities taking water from the Grand River are using upstream effluent for downstream drinkng water. Right now I don't know how much Lynn River flow ends up in the Port Dover water intake. Logically has to be some.

Any fish you do catch in our lakes or waters are contaiminated with mercury anyway....

I don't drink tap water any more.....distilled only for me..... I don't enjoy what's in our tap water, I know it's safe to drink obviously but the flouride and chlorine don't appeal to me...

Good thing you guys didn't swim or fish in Dover during the fifties and sixties. You could have swum with chicken guts and truds. Do you honestly think that Norfolk will/is the only county or town to put waste into the lake? The Grand empties into the lake at Dunniville, follow the river back and count the towns and cities along its bank they all empty in the river and then the lake. Hopefully if this goes through that the treatment plant will be state of the art. The reason we'er having this problem at this time is that the gauge at the present treatment plant was incorrectly set (and had been for years) the county thought it had lots of capacity but when it was installed it was set wrongly by the installer. The only thing I'd like to see is if there was a way to use the treated water in the summer to water the parks and flower beds around town. And I too don't work for the county.

There is no "magic" involved in the treatment of sewage. It's really quite simple. I had my level 1 ticket a couple of years ago (since expired).

After a couple of sedimentary tanks, and some simple natural processes occur, the liquid is then sent to the lake. Only a few months in the summer do they even add chlorine to the return. When heavy rains occur this process is sped up exponentially, in turn allowing "raw sewage" into the lake. Not to worry though, the "fresh water intake" is HUNDREDS of feet away from this, so there isn't TOO much of the waste returned to your drinking glass.

We assume no matter what we do to it the Earth will magically correct any problems.

Atleast the stuff from the treatment plants get some treatment. The water from the storm drains goes directly into the river and then the lake if I'm not mistaken. Gas, oil, cigarette butts, dog crap you name it. If its on the side of road and it rains it'll run into the storm drain.

You are correct that Storm Sewers are untreated and their redesign should be part of any new system. You see it now as holding ponds and other methods that help clean the water natrually and slow it's run to the Lake. There are also some great "Naturalization" programs in parks and for farms and residents that through smart designs the water stays on you property longer and gets filtered buy either long growth vegitation or by seaping through the earth to the water table.

There was a show on the Nature of Things a year or so ago about natural ways to filter sewage etc.. After the Russian government failed and they stopped helping to finance Cuba, the cubans didn't have a way to run the systems in Havana anymore. Also Havana Habour had become so polluted that nothing lived in it. So with all the education that the cuban people have they came up with natural and non-energy ways to clean the sewage. It was really pretty interesting. It was a 2 part show and the second show was about how they re-learned old farming ways so they could feed themselves. They could now feed their whole country without any outside help if need be.