Toronto’s Water Pollution Solution

Toronto’s Water Pollution Solution is a long-term plan to protect our environment and sustain healthy rivers, streams and other water bodies. And it’s about reducing the adverse effects of wet weather flow, which is runoff generated when it rains or snows. (Think of runoff as stormwater.) In a natural setting where there’s a lot of grass or vegetation, stormwater isn’t usually a problem because the rain filters into the ground. But we live in a modern city where there’s a lot of concrete, asphalt, brick, and this changes the way water travels and what it picks up along the way to the sewer. This means that, in our city, a lot of stormwater runs off roofs, roads and parking lots. It trickles down through drain pipes and empties into stormwater grates. Once it enters the grate (having collected dirt, oil, grease and a lot of other pollutants along the way), it travels through our extensive storm sewer system - 4,500 km in all - to some 2,600 outfalls or outlet pipes. In some cases, stormwater mixes with wastewater in the combined sewers or infiltrates into sanitary sewers. This causes the wastewater system and the City’s sewage treatment plants to be overloaded and untreated water enters our rivers, streams and Lake Ontario.
The result: degraded water quality conditions from an environmental and physical perspective. We’re talking about stream bank erosion, loss of fish habitat and basement flooding. It even affects our beaches.

To reverse these effects, the Water Pollution Solution sets out to accomplish 13 objectives under four major categories:
water quality
water quantity
natural areas
wildlife and sewer systems

Find out about the solutions on the city of Toronto website.... http://www.toronto.ca/water/protecting_quality/wwfmmp/

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