Canada's crumbling capital

If you looked at the headlines on Tuesday, May 20 you might've assumed Ottawa was on the brink of disaster. The three top headlines online at CBC Ottawa were:

Flood shuts Canada's national archives
Ottawa recycling yard on fire for 2nd time in 3 days
Sewage plant problems blamed for Petrie beach woes

So a broken water main caused the archives to flood in the north. Broken water mains aren't that newsworthy, except for the traffic snarls they cause, but let's keep in mind earlier this month there was traffic problems when two different mains broke on major streets downtown. Add the potential damage to the archives and it makes you wonder what's happening below the pavement.

Meanwhile, in the south some dry fire hydrants made fighting the blaze at the recycling plant a bit tricky (apparently this is fire #3 for that place - best paraphrase ever in the article was when they indicated officials were going to look into why the place keeps "bursting into flames"). The city says the mains servicing the hydrants were decommissioned in November 2005 and, for whatever reason, the site wasn't on the list of disconnected hydrants. Why doesn't the city do what other municipalities do: paint disconnected hydrants black. It'll be an immediate indication to emergency response crews that the infrastructure doesn't function and they better search for something more colourful. That sort of visual cue would likely be more useful than a list any day.

To the east end now. The public has just been told that a sewage gate left open for 15 days in 2006 might have contributed to the high E. coli counts down stream at Petrie Island that year. Now everyone is demanding to know why it took two years to disclose this raw sewage spill to the public despite a report being sent to the province right after the malfunction was detected. Ooops. This one promises to be interesting as it plays itself out. The knee-jerk reactions have already started, as have the calls for someone to get fired. And since this little malfunction took place during the election, the conspiracy theorists are undoubtedly having a blast. It's a lot of noise for 15 days. That much raw sewage is gross, but let's remember the core has a combined system, so raw sewage often finds its way into the river. Plus, Petrie was seeing high bacteria levels that summer before the gate was left open, so this is likely just one of many problems the beach faced in 2006.

Of course, on top of this, 24 Sussex is falling apart. With all the excitement, we probably shouldn't even mention the leda clay in the east. Not yet, anyway.