[Editor’s note: this story is one of five Coast articles selected as finalists for the 2010 Atlantic Journalism Awards. All five stories are collected here.]
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Last week, the brand new Halifax sewage plant—-the largest and most important component of the $330 million Halifax Solutions project—-crapped out. Evidently, a power outage led to some as yet unknown cascading series of events, and the entire system failed. The pumps stopped working, and the entire building has filled up with raw sewage.
Now, they have to pump out the building and figure out what went wrong. No doubt much will have to be rebuilt or replaced. When the plant first came on line, it took about four months to calibrate the system and get it up and running, and I don’t see why that won’t be the case again.
In the meanwhile, raw sewage is once again being diverted into the harbour, just like old times. Consider it the city’s contribution to heritage efforts.
The sewage plant failure comes on the heels of multiple problems apparently related to the pumping station at Inglis and Barrington, which has led to repeated floodings of nearby apartment complexes. I say “apparently” because the politicians and bureaucrats are tight-lipped about that disaster as well, trying to pawn it off variously as a regular event unrelated to the new pumping station, a building code violation on the part of the apartment developers or an act of a vengeful god. It’s hard to believe that engineers haven’t discovered the exact cause of the problem and written detailed reports about it, but if those reports exist they are some sort of state secret, as no one is making them public.
The sewage plant failure likewise is not a matter for the pesky public to worry its little head about. City spokesperson James Campbell is apparently out of the information loop—-he couldn’t give me any technical information about the failure whatsoever, and wasn’t aware that council was having a closed door meeting to discuss it, even as we spoke.
Council holds secret “in camera” sessions to discuss legal matters, and there are certainly a slew of them circling around the sewage plant failure. Somebody—-the contractor who built the plant, or we taxpayers—-is going to pick up the tab for this fiasco, but not before dozens of high-priced lawyers are dragged into the proceedings.
Still, there’s no reason that council can’t be briefed on the problem in public and then afterwards discuss legal strategy in secret. That it doesn’t demonstrates continued contempt for the public’s right to know.
As for the larger issue, it appears Harbour Solutions is misnamed.
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This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2009.
heritage contributions, priceless.
Still a sad situation for us.
“In the meanwhile, raw sewage is once again being diverted into the harbour, just like old times. Consider it the city’s contribution to heritage efforts”
Golden!
Is it fit to mention that the ‘Harbour Solutions’ was Mayor Kelly’s crowning achievement of note during his bid for re-election last year?
@ad and @issmat: I am with you on that heritage efforts line.
The whole piece is a banana split of deliciousness: the photo (Halifax shab at its finest), Tim bringing up the Inglis Street plant that he’s followed for a while, the closing zinger about Harbour “Solutions.” But heritage efforts? That’s the cherry on top.
I’m a little surprised at the tone of this article which seems to portray the Harbour Solutions project as a failure. When it was functional it led to a clean harbour in a very short period of time. That, to me, makes it a glowing success. Now, this current situation is a major setback and the flooding issues reflect some poor planning. I think the negativity is best directed at the way city council conducts its business and not at the project itself, which is something this city has needed for a very long time. I hope it is back up and running very soon.
“Evidently, a power outage led to some as yet unknown cascading series events,…”
Really?!?! A power outage in Nova Scotia?? Perhaps the lack of sewage entering the harbour was causing a build-up of salty fog.
One would think that given the dubious track record of unstable electrical supply in this province, some form of contingency plan would have been put in place for potential power outages. I’m not pointing the finger at NSP for this situation…yet, but I would like to know why back-up systems weren’t put in place for such a critical system.
Miles: “‘m a little surprised at the tone of this article which seems to portray the Harbour Solutions project as a failure. When it was functional it led to a clean harbour in a very short period of time. That, to me, makes it a glowing success.”
I don’t think so. Very soon I will file a public records request for overflows from the sewage plant— from before the recent shutdown. My sources tell me that they have been much more frequent than forecast. That’s rumour at this stage, but I’d like to document it.
The sewage plant IS a step in the right direction. Obviously there are some major issues that need to be addressed (and potentially should have been considered beforehand. However, this doesn’t negate the fact that our city is finally trying to do something tangible to clean up the harbour instead of just talking about it – a discussion that has dragged on for about 50 plus years. We have to start somewhere.
I’m sure the people who bought the condo units right across the street from the sewage plant weren’t seduced into buying by the slogan “A beautiful view… and the smell of poo”
I’m sure the people who bought the condo units right across the street from the sewage plant weren’t seduced into buying by the slogan “A beautiful view… and the smell of poo”
Does anybody find it just a little mind blowing that if this sewage plant were a private company their flood “solution” to dump shit into the harbor would be an environmental violation that our “municipality” would be all over but because this problem is related to a government run plant they can just do whatever they deem necessary. If it were private company there would a shit load of sewage trucks hauling their shit for an astronomical price to an environmentally “sound” location and that ain’t our harbor. HRM, you have some real backward thinking people running the show. Time to grow up!
There were apparently some back up generators that also were knocked offline… leading me to question the amount of testing given to these systems, and whether they were thrown in a moment of “not that we’ll ever need them” hubris akin to the Titanic plans.
Yay, we’re doing something finally. Boo — it’s primary when it should be tertiary, it took forever and still broke before the first year was up, and we have no guarantees that the cost of this fiasco won’t be on us.
Good thing we’re “doing something” huh? *raging mad*