A previous leak discovered in November on Burlington Street prompted an emergency inspection program, which is currently about halfway through its assessment of high-risk designated areas. The contaminated water from both Burlington Street and the more recently discovered Rutherford Avenue leak had been exiting the sewer system into Hamilton Harbour in an area closed to the public at Pier 12 (pictured). Photo credit: HOPA
The City of Hamilton discovered yet another sewage leak last week on Monday, January 9, 2023. This time, the City says that 59 million litres of wastewater flowed into Lake Ontario from 11 homes on Rutherford Avenue, near Delaware Avenue and Wentworth Street South, dating back to 1996.
The leak is considered the third major sewage spill involving the City of Hamilton.
The other two incidents are a 24 billion litre leak into Chedoke Creek over four years after a bypass gate was left open in an incident known as “Sewergate.” The Chedoke Creek leak was discovered in the summer of 2018. The second incident is a 337 million litre sewage leak over 26 years (since 1996) from a hole that was accidentally drilled in a Burlington Street East pipe. That leak was discovered in November 2022.
The latest spill on Rutherford Avenue was only discovered after the Burlington Street leak prompted an emergency inspection program. The inspections were launched on December 3, 2022, with the City having completed audits of 151 of 292 maintenance holds in designated areas last week and continuing to work on the project this week.
For now, the inspections are specific to older areas of the city as they are deemed at higher risk of having pipes with undocumented connections.
The city is inspecting each identified maintenance hold using a pole-mounted camera, with other camera work and dye tests also used on an as-needed basis.
Nick Winters, Director of Hamilton Water, says that the City will likely find more leaks as they continue their inspections.
The Rutherford Avenue leak appears to be similar to the Burlington Street leak in which a hole was drilled in a pipe combining sewage from people’s homes with stormwater runoff. Although the city is able to say that both holes were made in 1996, they also say that they have no reason to believe that the incidents were connected.
The contaminated water from both the Rutherford Avenue and Burlington Street leaks has been exiting the sewer system into the industrial Hamilton Harbour in an area that is closed to the public at Pier 12.
The City spent $37,529 on the Rutherford Avenue leak repair work including $22,000 on excavation, parts, and sewer realignment costs, $10,017 on vacuuming costs, $4,000 on permanent road restoration, and $1,512 on CCTV investigation and flushing. The costs do not include wages paid to staff working on the repairs. The repair work was completed on Wednesday, January 11, 2023.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath and the newly elected Hamilton City Council have also begun speaking about increasing stormwater taxes to raise funds to address problems with Hamilton’s aging sewer system.
The Hamilton Independent will be monitoring those developments over the coming weeks.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
