raw sewage

A Vancouver Island community is sounding the alarm about the lack of federal and provincial regulations targetting boat-dismantling operations that may leak pollutants like asbestos and heavy metals into Canadian waters.

As subterranean water inches higher, so do threats to our air and water.

The proposed changes would basically be a return to the laws under the old Fisheries Act, which were ineffective and rarely enforced, said Mark Mattson, environmental lawyer and president of Swim Drink Fish Canada.

Canada's old-fashioned city sewer systems dumped nearly 900 billion litres of raw sewage into this country's waterways over five years, enough to fill up an Olympic-sized swimming pool more than 355,000 times.

In Canada's largest city, raw sewage flows into Lake Ontario so often, Toronto tells people they should never swim off the city's beaches for least two days after it rains.

Stella Bowles has won national science prizes and public service awards. She has a scholarship lined up from Western University, and a book about her work is being published this month.

City began dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the river to perform critical repair work on the support arches of a major sanitary line as well as relocate a snow chute on Wednesday.

extent of the corrosion and rot of the arches supporting a major sewer interceptor convinced Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre that he made the right choice authorizing a massive waste dump.

Everything was proceeding as planned and the infrastructure repair work that necessitated the discharge remains on schedule.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says situation "less than ideal" but the best solution to the city's waste water crisis.

Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel made the announcement on behalf of Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq on Wednesday, saying she'd issued an interim order under Fisheries Act.

...but Leona Aglukkaq tweeted Wednesday that her office only learned last week of the wastewater dump plan - a claim zeroed in on by opponents as election looms.

One-week sewage dump is to relocate a snow chute on a tunnel that needs to be empty for workers to access it - as part of ongoing plan to raze the downtown Bonaventure Expressway.