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BEHINDTHELINESThe media, portrayed the egg board as keystone cops last spring. The board, funded and directed by producers, empowered by provincial legislation and accompanied by the federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency, raided a farm in eastern Ontario looking for illegal production. We’ve grown accustomed to the urban media’s bias against marketing boards but reporting on this situation seemed over the top and some farm reporters piled on, too. Several of the farm reporters have subsequently rethought or clarified their coverage but still we wondered what went wrong. We also wondered about the enforcement challenges faced by other marketing boards. Our story on this topic begins on page 12. Bypasses from the Dingman pumping station at the south end of London take a winding route through rural lands and into the Thames River downstream and away from the city. Ratepayers are spending money to fix that, and farm newspapers needn’t worry about it, according to a top municipal employee. After deadlines for stories had passed, Ron Standish, director of waste water and treatment for the city of London returned a call and answered questions from Better Farming about the city’s plans to pay for upgrades to its storm and sewage infrastructure. Records from the Spills Action Centre of the Ministry of the Environment point to a large number of bypasses from sewage treatment plants in that southwestern Ontario city. Bypasses occur when heavy rains fill very old combined storm and sanitary sewers and the combined flow is too much for the treatment plants. During heavy rains, sewage treatment plant operators “pull the plug” and let the combined liquid pass through, bypassing normal treatment. Standish thinks treatment plants’ contribution to pollution in the Thames River is overblown compared to what is already in the river when there is a rainstorm, including nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment from farmland upstream. He cited Easter Weekend in 2004 when the Greenway sewage plant located beside Springbank Park was running at three times its design capacity. The 300 million litres that “bypassed” treatment was 1.5 per cent of the water flow in the Thames River. The bypassing liquid was diluted “four to one” with storm water, he says, and bacteria aren’t an issue because most water was treated with ultraviolet light. The river was “a nice brown chocolate colour” because of sediment from upstream. “We are the least of the river’s problems,” he asserted. “Thank you for your interest.” Standish says the city of London plans to spend $830 million over 20 years on sewage and storm water infrastructure, with $432 million directed at replacement of existing infrastructure that is wearing out, $212 million on system improvements, and $185 million on growth related infrastructure. The Dingman pumping station is “a good news story,” he says, because the city has already spent money to store the storm and sanitary sewer runoff until the rainfall had passed. The new system is now being tested. Spending is a touchy subject during an election year, he noted.BF
Robert Irwin & Don Stoneman
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