Help Protect Our Rivers from Untreated Sewage
January 17, 2012
Dear Ecology Ottawa supporter,
Every year, the City of Ottawa dumps hundreds of millions of litres of untreated sewage directly into the Ottawa River. Now you have an opportunity to help stop this travesty once and for all.
Please click here to send a quick letter to all Ottawa area MPs urging them to ensure that funding for the Ottawa River Action Plan is included in the federal 2012 Budget.
Support for action already exists. Indeed, local Member of Parliament John Baird has said: “It’s no longer an environmental issue. For many residents of the city of Ottawa, including myself, it’s a moral issue.” We could not agree more.
Thankfully, the city has developed the Ottawa River Action Plan to address this issue and the plan is already delivering results. In June, the city announced that recent infrastructure upgrades have cut discharges by more than half compared to measurements of four years ago. However, in 2011, the city still discharged 417-million litres of combined sewage and rainwater into the river—that is the equivalent of almost 166 Olympic-sized pools full of sewage!
City council would like to move forward with the next phase of the Ottawa River Action Plan—the construction of major combined sewage overflow (CSO) storage facilities. CSO storage facilities will lower the amount of contaminants released to the Ottawa River, improving the water quality and possibly reducing the number of beach closures.
According to Ottawa Riverkeeper Meredith Brown, who has endorsed this letter-writing campaign, it is imperative that the city move ahead with the Ottawa River Action Plan, with or without federal support. “But,” says Brown, “the Ottawa River is a key feature of the National Capital Region. The federal government should be doing everything it can to stop the dumping of untreated sewage in the river that runs through the nation’s capital.”
The province has indicated its willingness to contribute one-third of the cost, but the federal government has not yet made a similar commitment. We want to urge the federal government to commit to its third of the funding in the federal 2012 Budget. This is why we are asking you to write to your local Member of Parliament today.
Please send a quick letter now to all Ottawa area MPs urging them to ensure that funding for the Ottawa River Action Plan is included in the federal 2012 Budget.
The health of our rivers depends on you demanding action from our elected officials today.
Sincerely,
Graham Saul
Chair, Ecology Ottawa
p.s. — We recognize that the Ottawa River Action Plan is reactive, rather than proactive, so we will continue to encourage the city to prevent stormwater runoff by making green roofs and permeable surfaces the norm city-wide. Help us be more effective in this work by making a donation to Ecology Ottawa today and please consider volunteering.