Tuesday’s rare flash flood spilled a huge amount of raw sewage into Lake Ontario, leaving a repulsive, potentially sickening mess the Star saw first-hand on Thursday.

“Ew, that’s disgusting,” said Katrina Wells of Markham, who was waiting for a water taxi to the Toronto Islands when the Star showed her a picture of what was floating in the harbour. “I guess it would be a problem if I fell in the water.”

The Star had joined Toronto-based water-monitoring group Swim Drink Fish as it tested water in the harbour for E. coli contamination.

The results of those tests won’t be back for at least 24 hours, but levels of the bacterium were already more than 100 times greater than the standard for beach water quality of 100 E.coli bacteria per 100 millilitres of water before Tuesday’s storm. After the flash flood, the results were plain to see: condoms, tampons, feminine hygiene pads, syringes and needles amid a floating mass of gunk.

“This is a vital area of the city and we’re just hoping to make the water here swimmable, drinkable and fishable,” said Elise Mackie, community monitoring co-ordinator for the group formerly known as Lake Ontario Waterkeepers.

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Some of the debris Thursday came from downtown Toronto’s old plumbing system, which carries household waste and whatever gets swept through storm drains in the same pipes — pipes that overflowed Tuesday. Modern cities, and some of Toronto’s younger suburbs, are outfitted with separate sewer systems which segregate human waste and storm water, a setup which became standard in the 1950s and ’60s.

Ontario released more than eight million cubic metres of untreated sewage and runoff into its waterways in 2016, according to Environment Canada.

“It certainly makes me sad to see it and count it every now and then,” Mackie said.

Mackie and a group of volunteers set out every Tuesday and Thursday mornings to sample locations not already monitored by the city.

The city of Toronto regularly conducts water monitoring at 11 beaches, but it does not do so on at the rest of the waterfront, where people can regularly be seen fishing, boating and surfing.

Toronto Public Health spokesperson Mahesh Patel said waterfront areas such as Humber Bay Park and Harbourfront are not designated as public beaches.

Swim Drink Fish president Mark Mattson said the city’s waterfront has undergone a significant revitalization, and more activities are taking place at the harbour. Separating the sewage from rainwater should be a priority going forward, he insisted.

“The giant dreams are blossoming here, but they’re running into giant mistakes of the past,” he said, noting the city of Kingston recently spent a lot of money separating its sewage system.

“It’s going to take both willingness and imagination of our politicians to fix those mistakes.”

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Swim Drink Fish’s goal is to test water quality and E. coli levels. It takes samples into an incubator at an in-house laboratory and gets results a day later.

The group says the findings are often ugly. Since May, 23 samples taken at Bathurst Quay have indicated E. coli levels exceeding recreational water-quality standards, said Mackie.

On Aug. 2, the level at Bathurst Quay was more than 10 times greater than the acceptable standard of 100 E. coli bacteria per 100 millilitres (a little under half a cup) of water, set by the provincial Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.

On Aug. 7, the day of the storm, results from Marina 4 near Queens Quay and Rees St. registered E. coli levels 249 times greater than the standard, the highest the group has recorded at the location. At Bathurst Quay, E. coli levels were 130 greater than the standard.

When levels of the bacteria exceed the standard, seven out of 2,000 people would get sick from ingesting or swimming in that water, said Mackie.

“Anything from gastrointestinal sickness, skin rash, ear infections,” she explained. “E. coli is just an indicator of bacteria.”

The thought that the water may be contaminated, even on days when it looks clean on the surface, worries Ro Omrow, a scuba diver with Ontario Underwater Explorers.

“We generally just used our eyes to test if the water was clean,” he said about his club diving at the Humber Bay shore. Last year he approached Swim Drink Fish about water testing at their diving place, and he has since been bringing in water samples every week.

When tests shows the E. coli levels exceed the standards, the group still dives, but they take more precautions, such as showering right after diving, Omrow said.

“It would absolutely make a difference if the city did the testing,” he said. “Probably more frequent, and maybe at other diving clubs too.”