Wednesday, January 07, 2009

City Beat: Toronto faces ugly sewer problem

A section of the Coxwell Trunk Sewer has "failed", meaning there are cracks in the cement. I heard today that the steel shell is likely still intact. This sewer trunk carries the volume of a small river. Fixing it isn't a matter of shutting things off and making repairs. They have to build a bipass and then connect that to the main sewer, which is expensive and lengthy. The line is near the Don River. It isn't clear how likely a disaster might be, but if the thing broke open it would be a very ugly situation for Toronto residents.

We take our sewage for granted. One flush and it disappears. On a small scale, here at Anchovy World Headquarters we discovered how debilitating it is for a household when a few tree roots break through a clay drain pipe. The Coxwell trunk carries the sewage for 3/4 million Torontonians. All this goes on underground, out of site, out of mind.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had a sewer issue this summer on our street. There was a leak that was causing the road to cave in every few years. I walked out one morning to see a bunch of workers surrounding a very deep hole in front of my hose. Of course I had my big man-magnet dog with me and while they were making a fuss over him, a disembodied voice from deep underground yelled "I WANT TO SEE THE DOG TOO!"

mister anchovy said...

That's too funny LM. I remember the last time I had a dog. It was actually the dog belonging to the fellow who shared the storefront studio with me back in the 80s. We worked different hours and so we each spent some time caring for the beast. It was amazing how many people in the neighbourhood we knew because of the dog.