Shit Wizard 420

I’m not saying this happening is okay, but the lack of context about the volume can be misleading. Rules are different in Manitoba but in Ontario plants need to notify the public when there is a spill, which is why I imagine it’s made the news before any details are available. The idea is to inform downstream water users as soon as possible.

10 millions litres is 5% of average daily flow. It’s a very small amount, and the pollition load would be similar to a few days of totally treated sewage.

This article has a bit more info on what happened: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-sewage-spill-treatment-plant-9.7407843

Two automated bypass gates at the North End sewage treatment plant opened unexpectedly at about 1:10 a.m., … “We are still investigating why the gates opened and why the first alarm did not go off.”

I want to be clear I’m not criticising anyone. The fact that they caught it so quickly is honestly amazing. I’ve seen similar issues (that didn’t involve a spill to the environment) go undetected for like, months, because someone assumed the instrument was faulty and didn’t bother to verify.

I’m having trouble finding the one I’m thinking about (it was written for some industry org, maybe OWWA or OPWA?

Anyways, here is a comprehensive history, but it’s 181 pages: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2273818

I’ll comment again if I find the other one. I’m sure I have it saved somewhere 😅

TL;DR: Ottawa would have sooner built an aqueduct from 31-Mile Lake than build a sewage plant. They didn’t get one until the 1960s. Toronto built it’s first (and poorly working) municipal plant in 1912 (I think?). The chief bacteriologist in Ottawa was just like, throw some chlorine at the water, you will be fine. 😬

Yeah so that exists and it’s not going so well for the UK. I will edit with some links.

Edit:

Very broadly water utilities in the UK and north America largely started off private but public ownership is still the norm for centralized system of idk > 100 people?

Tbh I’m high and not bothering to look stuff but but I’m guessing that it was sewage treatment which lead water utilities (handling both potable and sewage) being public. You can charge people for water, but unless the government is forcing people to connect to a sewer and get rid of pit latrines etc there is no market for it. (Fun fact domestic connections to sewers predate the widespread use of septic tanks)

Migration to urban centres due to industrialization and the industrial processes themselves were the main loading of sewage, which overwhelmed natural systems that had previously been able to support the community.

Someone had to treat the sewage because it was fucking up the drinking water. Who has to deal with stuff like that? The government! So they run the sewage plants. And because the private drinking water plants were run for profit and not for health, a lot of them were extremely bad they got shut down. Once again, the government had to step in because they needed to enforce standards.

Toronto and Ottawa have very interesting and very divergent experiences with that relationship. If someone is interested I can see if I can dig up an article someone wrote about it.

Anyways, sometimes the government made developers pay directly for the construction, operations and maintenance of a plant, but now in Ontario for the most part they just charge development fees. Small communities like trailer parks or ski villages typically have their own little plant or over glorified septic tank.

I came here to argue that there are in fact private sewage companies and they are often disasters, but I think the above kind of proved that the origin of public water utilities was the failure of the private sector to get their shit together.

Well that’s awkward.

Anyways, fuck Thames Water : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Water

Apprenticeship is the only way, but you need books to help pass the exams.

Sacramento State courses were at one time considered the best: https://owp.csus.edu/operator-training/courses/correspondence-courses/wastewater-courses/course.php?sectionId=1947&has_child_courses=1

I’m even if they aren’t considered great anymore, doing the correspondence course which costs $50 and is a series of online multiple choice questions gives you 90 training hours towards your renewal requirements which is more than two years worth here.

I understand operators these days prefer the WEF manuals: https://www.wef.org/publications/operator-training-manuals/ Perhaps they kept up with the standard exams better.

On the engineering side I love the WEF MOP, especially MOP 8: https://connect.wef.org/s/store#/store/browse/detail/a2nRP000000oa6jYAA

We joke that Metcalf and Eddy is our bible but it’s the most basic starting point in research. I think people take the joke too literally sometimes:

https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/wastewater-engineering-treatment-and-resource-recovery-metcalf-and-eddy.html?viewOption=student