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Bird droppings add to pollution soup on Toronto waterfront and beaches Environment Canada is DNA fingerprinting bacteria to find its source by DON STONEMAN Birds now have the attention of the City of Toronto which spent $50 million in the last few years in an unsuccessful attempt to keep just one beach open. The city built 85,000 cubic metres of storage to collect storm water so that it doesn't contaminate the waterfront at Sunnyside Beach, west of the Canadian National Exhibition grounds, says Michael D'Andrea, Toronto's director of water infrastructure management. Yet the beaches were still closed because of bacterial contamination. Environment Canada is now conducting DNA fingerprinting of bacteria found along the beaches in an attempt to discover its source. D'Andrea says birds are high on the suspect list because of the proliferation of gulls, Canada geese and ducks on the waterfront. Agriculture's role hasn't been ruled out because outflow from the Humber River affects Sunnyside Beach. Only 20 per cent of the Humber River watershed is in Toronto's sphere of influence and control. The Humber's source is in the newly declared Greenbelt area. Reports from the Ministry of the Environment's Spills Action Centre show that the number of sewage bypasses reported by the City of Toronto has fallen in recent years. However, D'Andrea notes that combined sewage overflows (CSOs) are another plague for Toronto's sewage system. CSOs occur when heavy rains make storm sewers overflow into old sanitary sewers and the combination of sewage and surface runoff is piped directly into Lake Ontario without benefit of a treatment plant, so they aren't recorded as a bypass. The City of Toronto has pledged to the Ministry of Environment to deal with CSOs, D'Andrea says, through a 25-year "action plan." D'Andrea and the city downplayed the possible effects from the millions of litres of raw sewage that were spilled when a 48-inch pipeline across a creek broke during a 100-year rainstorm on Aug. 19. Sewage poured into the creek at the rate of 700 litres a second for several days before repairs could be done. The outflow did not come near a beach. If birds are found to be a cause of beach pollution, it's not clear what will be done about them. Both Canada geese and gulls are protected species under the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1916. Most other bird species are also protected under the same convention, says Jack Hughes, a Canadian Wildlife Service waterfowl biologist based in Ottawa. Both species have done well in the last 40 years or so. Gulls have proliferated because of landfills and because there are fewer predators. Geese have likewise taken advantage of land development that took away predators' habitat, and both gulls and geese benefit from agriculture. Hughes thinks breakdowns in city sewage systems are just as likely to cause beach closures as bird poop. "I don't think we will see any birds get taken off (the protected list) no matter how numerous they become. " It's a matter of principle," he says. "Nobody wants to just consider them as vermin" and open the door to widespread shooting and poisoning. Geese are considered a resource, Hughes notes. There is a hunting season for them, and even gulls play a useful role by eating mice and grasshoppers in farmers' fields.BF © copyright 2005 AgMedia Inc.. top back