Hamilton’s director of water hopes hole that dumped wastewater into harbour was an ‘anomaly’

In a follow-up to news of a 'wrong connection' in a storm drain near Burlington and Wentworth streets, the city's top water man says the problem was fixed on Wednesday.

A day after revealing a hole in a storm sewer has been dumping wastewater into Hamilton harbour for 26 years, the city’s top water man is characterizing the wrong connection as an “anomaly.”

In a follow-up to Tuesday’s discovery at the intersection of Burlington and Wentworth streets, Director of Water Nick Winters told reporters a city contractor has fixed the problem which resulted in sewage from 39 north-end properties being incorrectly discharged.

An emergency contractor reconnected a sanitary sewer to the pipe that carries waste to the Woodward Avenue Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The intervention made in the sewer system back in the ’90s didn’t make it onto an inventory for the city’s maintenance team to inspect on a regular basis. since the team thought the storm sewer was discharging into another storm drain.

“We don’t go out of our way to inspect those connections just to make sure that nothing is going wrong,” Winters explained.

“I would characterize this as an anomaly, I sincerely hope.”

He said pipes attached to the homes in question were “connected wrong” and joined with the storm sewer pipe, then connected into a sanitary pipe.

Winters said there was no visible indication of the resulting spill into the harbour over the years since outfall typically is submerged in the waterway.