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. Read more:Toronto infrastructure overwhelmed by rare storm, experts sayToronto politicians can’t hide from the increasingly extreme weatherSome 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 ...
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