They find that there are elevated levels of e-coli at Lake Banook this week and close it until further notice, advising people not to swim there. The news report shows footage of sewage trucks driving around on the beach, they’ve been there for a few days, so people presume that it must be a sewage leak causing the contamination, based on the presence of the trucks.
Oh no, the city says, and the news echos, those trucks are just there doing regular maintenance, no big deal, no way it’s a sewage leak causing e-coli outbreaks, totally unrelated coincidence.
Did they conveniently forget their own news report from a week before, saying they would be lowering the lake by two metres in order to put a sewage line in for Dartmouth Crossing? Hadn’t they JUST SAID the lake might have to be closed when they do that?
The official word (or omission of words) of the media tries to convince you you’re wrong, your memory isn’t reliable, or it didn’t happen the way you think, if it happened at all. Or that something they reported would happen is happening, but not for reasons they reported. What the fuck?
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2008.
Presumably, the new sewage line won’t have sewage in it until it’s plugged in.But old lines all over the old part of Dartmouth (including around Lake Banook) and on the peninsula are leaky as hell. This time of year, just go to any manhole cover and you can smell the sewage. It invariably flows downhill, including into Lake Banook. Lower the lake level and it’s going to be that much worse. The solution, I’ve long maintained, is to separate storm and sewer drains, but that’s not on the agenda.
When I read the title of this post I thought of QWERTY. I don’t know why.