City ratepayers will pay an average $29 extra for water and sewer services next year - with part of the hike aimed at preventing more notorious sewage spills.

The proposed 2020 rate budget came to councillors just days after The Spectator published details of secret reports that showed the city was hiding the magnitude of a four-year spill that dumped 24 billion litres of sewage into Chedoke Creek.

The budget committee signed off Monday for an average residential water bill of around $752, or about a 4.1 per cent hike over 2019. Council is expected to ratify the hike at an upcoming meeting.

But a small part of that hike - about $500,000 - is now aimed at adding more staff to ensure "routine physical inspections" of water and sewer infrastructure - including the overflow tank that leaked sewage into Chedoke Creek and the nationally protected Cootes Paradise.

Coun. Tom Jackson pitched the motion to add five new staffers who will focus on physical inspections and related water testing.

He argued residents are "dumbfounded" the city didn't discover the sewage tank leak for years and suggested the water department relied too heavily on automated sensors that ultimately did not reveal a partly open gate that allowed pollution to escape.

"Obviously, automation failed us," Jackson said.

The extra staffers and inspection actually represent a little less than $1 of the planned rate hike. The remainder of the extra cash is needed to continue replacing failing underground pipes and paying the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for the ongoing upgrade of the Woodward treatment plant.

The city is also studying how it can accurately track the flow out of 27 combined sewer outlets that sometimes spew untreated sewage into the environment during storms - as well as sewage-trapping tanks that occasionally overflow.

The provincial Tory government announced earlier this year it would be requiring cities to start notifying the public in real-time when sewage overflows into local waterways. Coun. Brad Clark pitched a motion to create a real-time website earlier this year.

The city's study, which will continue through next year, will focus first on finding a way to track sewage flow out of 13 difficult-to-reach pipe locations. Right now, only about half of overflow locations have monitoring equipment installed.

The city launched a website this month that will tell residents when partly treated sewage is deliberately released from the Woodward treatment plant during storms to prevent backups into people's homes.

Eventually, it should also show when and where untreated sewage is being pushed out of old, overwhelmed pipes and into the harbour or local creeks.

So far this year, the treatment plant has deliberately released about 2,755 megalitres (more than 1,100 Olympic-sized swimming pools) of untreated or partly treated sewage into Red Hill creek.

By comparison, the four-year Chedoke sewage spill is thought to have released 10,000 pools worth of watery sewage into the creek, which empties into Cootes Paradise.

This story was updated Nov. 26 to reflect the fact a city webpage is already available to show real-time treatment plant bypass incidents.

It's not just poo: What ends up in a combined sewer overflow tank?

The 24 billion litres of sewage spilled over four years into Cootes Paradise contained urine and feces, sure.

But mixed in are also all the contaminants found in mixed sewage and stormwater - some more environmentally unfriendly than others:

• road salt, which is harmful to aquatic plants;

• oil from vehicles and industrial equipment;

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• pesticides and fertilizers, the latter which can promote uncontrolled algae growth;

• metals, rubber and carbon black particles washed out of industrial areas;

• needles from medical or recreational drug use;

• drugs, both recreational and pharmaceutical, which are a growing concern to fish health;

• hygiene products like tampons, condoms and floss. The city ran an Own Your Throne campaign earlier this year urging people to quit flushing those items (but without mentioning the spill);

• soaps and detergents;

• other bodily wastes like blood, vomit, mucus and toenails.

mvandongen@thespec.com

905-526-3241 | @Mattatthespec

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