The City of Guelph and the Ministry of the Environment are investigating after a sewage leak happened on Sunday (Feb. 17) on a trail that runs along the Eramosa River.

“The city is conducting an intensive internal investigation of the spill,” Daryush Esmaili, the city’s manager of design and construction, said in an email response to a Mercury Tribune inquiry. “The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is also currently investigating the spill which is standard response when a spill is reported.”

Esmaili said that the spill was wastewater from the city’s sewer system that had overflowed through a manhole in the park along the Royal Recreational Trail — between Bell and Armstrong avenues.

The city learned of the spill at 9:43 a.m. on Sunday and stopped it by 10:22 a.m., he said.

“As soon as the city was alerted to the spill we immediately: visited the site to assess the issue; stopped the spill; and contacted the province’s Spills Action Centre to report the issue,” Esmaili said.

Neighbourhood resident Kevin Walker expressed concern that it may have taken longer than it should have for the city to be alerted to the spill.

Walker said that construction crews have been working in the area all year long; the work is part of the city’s York Trunk Sewer and Paisley-Clythe Feeder Main Project, a large-scale water main and sanitary sewer installation project.

Walker said that there are security guards who keep an eye on the generators and equipment in the area who may have noticed the leak earlier, but didn’t let the city know.

Walker found out about the spill from a neighbour who, like himself, walks his dog in the park.

Hearing his neighbour describe the “human waste” being flushed into the woods, Walker grew concerned.