Ontario has ordered Hamilton to come up with a damage report and water-monitoring for Cootes Paradise following an infamous four-year sewage spill.

The Spectator exclusively revealed details of secret reports two weeks ago that showed city councillors deliberately hid the magnitude of a four-year spill that dumped the equivalent of 10,000 Olympic swimming pools of sewage into Chedoke Creek, which outlets into Cootes Paradise.

The city kept the 24-billion-litre size of the spill secret over legal concerns — but council apologized Thursday in the face of a public outcry and voted to release withheld studies and documents on the spill.

That includes two previously unpublicized orders from Ontario's Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks requiring the city come up with spill impact and cleanup studies.

Spokesperson Gary Wheeler said Monday that the ministry issued a "strengthened" order following a review of study requirements requested by the city, which previously expressed concern about its ability to meet the reporting deadlines.

The new director's order gives the city more time for some studies — but also requires the city to prove it is making progress via mandatory meetings with a district environment ministry manager every other week.

The city is still required to submit an ecological risk assessment and remediation plan for Chedoke Creek by the original Feb. 14 deadline. But the new order gives the city until May 2020 to come up with a damage report from spill on Cootes Paradise.

It also requires a separate plan to monitor surface water for "ongoing environmental impact" on the protected marsh, which is a critical fish spawning ground, migratory bird sanctuary and a National Historic Site.

City public works head Dan McKinnon said it's too early to say what a Cootes Paradise monitoring program would look like — or even who would be in charge of the effort.

Right now only the marsh owner, the Royal Botanical Gardens, does water quality sampling in Cootes as part of the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan (RAP).

Any new efforts — or funding — to help monitor the health of the pollution-plagued marsh would be "welcome and valuable," said Tys Theijsmeijer, the RBG's head of natural areas.

But the longtime marsh advocate said it's more urgent to talk to the city about cleaning up — rather than just watching — the "ongoing threat" of spilled sewage leftover on the bottom of Chedoke Creek.

A consulting report recently released by the city suggested Hamilton should dredge the creek to remove about 530 large dump truck loads worth of sewage-laced "sludge." But duelling city consultants are at odds over that recommendation and more studies are underway.

"It's just a massive amount of sludge that will be food for who knows how many algae blooms," Theijsmeijer said, arguing the slurry will inevitably end up in Cootes.

"You don't need a monitoring program to tell you what happens in a storm."

Theijsmeijer said he hopes to meet in the coming weeks with city officials and offer "missing information" about the impact of the four-year spill on Cootes, including a loss of plant life like water lilies and pond weed in recent years.

The city has twice asked for more time to do provincially ordered studies on the spilled sewage, which escaped over four years from an inexplicably cracked-open tank gate.

A provincial investigation into how the spill happened is ongoing.

In the meantime, the latest provincial order requires the city to post the document on its website "for public viewing" — which it did Friday at hamilton.ca/ChedokeCreek.

That's a change from the vague language in the past two provincial orders, which specified posting in a "conspicuous place."

The city chose to post those original orders in a staff-only treatment plant control room, spurring more public outrage. On Thursday, council voted to make such orders public on the city website in future.

The city also posted public information Monday about a 12-hour sewage treatment plant "bypass" online for the first time since council voted earlier this year to make such overflows public in real-time.

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Eventually, all planned and inadvertent sewage spills in the environment will be posted on the site.

mvandongen@thespec.com

905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec