A strange thing happened to me at the river today

[Spinninreel]

I went out to the river today, and made my way downstream on a nice sunny day with water clairity about 3 feet. I hit a couple of holes with no success. As I'm fishing my third spot, I suddenly notice that the clarity has dropped substantially. In approximately 15 min, the visibility had dropped to 6 inches. I went further down stream and was fortunate to catch a 3lb sucker. I decided to investigate and see what was causing this poor visibility in the water so I headed back upstream. As I'm walking along, I notice on one of the steep embankments, someone emptying his pool and the water gushing down the side of this hill picking up tons of dirt and dumping it into the river. I also presume that this water is chlorinated and would have a serious affect on the river. Can you believe this?
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[LogJam]

I went out to the river today, and made my way downstream on a nice sunny day with water clairity about 3 feet. I hit a couple of holes with no success. As I'm fishing my third spot, I suddenly notice that the clarity has dropped substantially. In approximately 15 min, the visibility had dropped to 6 inches. I went further down stream and was fortunate to catch a 3lb sucker. I decided to investigate and see what was causing this poor visibility in the water so I headed back upstream. As I'm walking along, I notice on one of the steep embankments, someone emptying his pool and the water gushing down the side of this hill picking up tons of dirt and dumping it into the river. I also presume that this water is chlorinated and would have a serious affect on the river. Can you believe this?
.

yeah i can believe this, but if the pool was sitting all winter, it shouldnt have to much chlorine left in it.. if any at all. still a stupid thing to do. i would of been upset to see that...

 

[m_van]

Should have reported so the sucker will be investigated

 

[Rain-Bow]

I was hoping you saw a cryptid or something. I'm glad to hear it wasn't full of chlorine.

 

[LICENSETOPIN]

It might bring in a fresh run of fish

 

[NADO]

Lol...I guess it it can only add to the water level.

But seriously if you saw where it came from you should take down their address and call the MNR, that is something they would definitely take action on as they have the physical address to follow up on. There will probably still be evidence that a bunch of water was poured behind their house.

 

[Dozer]

Chlorine wouldn't be an issue, it dissipates fairly quickly, and as a previous post stated, that water has been sitting there over winter... other pool additives may be an issue.

Did the bite turn on afterwards? :lol:

 

[Spinninreel]

This water would have chlorine in it and that is a highly poisonous substance for our rivers. The river was seriously messed up. So today, I decided and called the MNR and reported the incident. Lets see what happens, but I thing these people should be fined so they never do this again.

 

[MichaelVerdirame]

I also presume that this water is chlorinated and would have a serious affect on the river. Can you believe this?

Chlorine evaporates out of the water as people of have said before. Still, it's not right to dump your pool into a river, that's wrong. I think it's more right to dump your pool into the sewer.

Any pool owners know what other additives would be present. Correct me if i'm wrong, but public pools have told me they don't use chlorine anymore. I wonder what they switched too...

 

[Spinninreel]

The chlorine does evaporate over time, but what pool owners do at the end of the season, is they dump a large quantity of chlorine in the water to kill off all the algae over the winter, otherwise they would end up with green slime everywhere. Even if this pool owner went over to a salt water system, it would still be very harmfull to the river environment.

 

[Blair]

I went out to the river today, and made my way downstream on a nice sunny day with water clairity about 3 feet. I hit a couple of holes with no success. As I'm fishing my third spot, I suddenly notice that the clarity has dropped substantially. In approximately 15 min, the visibility had dropped to 6 inches. I went further down stream and was fortunate to catch a 3lb sucker. I decided to investigate and see what was causing this poor visibility in the water so I headed back upstream. As I'm walking along, I notice on one of the steep embankments, someone emptying his pool and the water gushing down the side of this hill picking up tons of dirt and dumping it into the river. I also presume that this water is chlorinated and would have a serious affect on the river. Can you believe this?
.

Storm sewers
Storm sewers capture rainwater or snowmelt from residential and commercialproperties. This water flows into nearby watercourses or the lake. Watercoursesinclude creeks, streams and rivers – natural, concrete channels or undergroundpipes – that carry water, including stormwater and snowmelt from catchbasins intoLake Ontario.

Combined sewers
In one of the city's older areas, the sewer serving your property may be acombined sewer. In a combined sewer, there is only one pipe which carries bothsanitary and storm drainage. During dry weather, combined sewers carry allcontents to treatment plants. However, during wet weather, the volume of watermay exceed the treatment plant's capacity and some of the water overflowsuntreated into the lake. The storm sewers will carry stormwater and snowmeltand the old combined sewer will handle sanitary sewage only, eliminating theoverflow in wet weather.

2.2 Land Use, Pollution Sources, andSelection of Water Quality, Sediment Quality, and Biomonitoring Indicators

2.2.1 Land Use and Pollution Sources

Theextensive urban/industrial and rural/agricultural land use activity within theLake Ontario drainage basin of accounts for a range of pollutants enteringtributaries and lakes from “point sources” (e.g. industrial and municipaleffluent discharges) and “non-point sources” (e.g. diffuse runoff from urban oragricultural areas). These pollutants include suspended solids, dissolvedsolids, bacteria, nutrients, metals, and trace organic contaminants (includingpesticides, PCBs, and a range of industrial organic chemical byproducts).Associated impacts can range from short-term restrictions on recreational wateruse, to impaired aquatic and benthic habitat, to uptake and magnification ofpersistent trace organics through the food web resulting in potential harm tofish-eating birds and mammals (including humans). Identifying the location andextent of possible impacts remains a key challenge in the design of aneffective monitoring program.

Contaminants associated with urban runoff include polycyclicaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), metals and petroleum hydrocarbons associated withvehicle exhaust, brake and tire wear, fuel and engine oil leaks or spills, andcorrosion. Other contaminants associated with roads and urban runoff includesuspended solids, nutrients, pesticides and bacteria from sanitary sewer crossconnections, infiltration from the sanitary sewer system, accidental ordeliberate spills to road side catch basins, chemical applications (fertilizersand pesticides) run off from commercial/industrial storage areas, and faecalmaterial from wildlife and domestic animals.





TORONTO -- Thefirst comprehensive look at the amount of raw sewage flowing into the GreatLakes from cities in Canada and the United States has found that billions oflitres are being dumped untreated every year into the sources of drinking waterfor communities on both sides of the border.
The largest discharges came from big cities such as Detroit, Cleveland andToronto, where antiquated sewage treatment systems are regularly overwhelmedwhen it rains and their contents swept untreated into the lakes. But evensmaller communities, such as Ontario's London and Kingston, release largequantities of raw sewage.
Information on the discharges was compiled by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund,based mainly on estimates the environmental group obtained from themunicipalities themselves. According to city figures, sewage dumping occurshundreds of times a year, releasing a cocktail of human waste, disease-causingorganisms and hundreds of synthetic chemicals from drugs and personal careproducts.
The total volume of untreated waste at the 20 cities from which the groupobtained information was about 98 billion litres a year, enough to fill 37,000Olympic-size swimming pools with sewage. This volume likely underestimates themagnitude of the pollution problem because it is based on cities representingonly about a third of the region's 35 million residents

 

[staffman]

In London pool owners are no longer allowed to dump their pool water into the storm sewers. There is a heavy fine if they are caught, so I guess that they are suppose to hire a tank truck to get rid of their water.

 

[MichaelVerdirame]

In London pool owners are no longer allowed to dump their pool water into the storm sewers. There is a heavy fine if they are caught, so I guess that they are suppose to hire a tank truck to get rid of their water.

Good thing I don't own a pool! I always see people dumping pool waster into the storm sewer =( I didn't put 2 and 2 together. this water just ends up in the rivers anyways!

 

[Spinninreel]

A friend of mine emptied his pool behind his house and a number of his cedar trees died, so you could imagine what pool water going straight into the river would do.

 

[NADO]

A friend of mine emptied his pool behind his house and a number of his cedar trees died, so you could imagine what pool water going straight into the river would do.

A very good point, I was thinking the same thing to myself last night. While it may be bad that the storm water ends up in the rivers and lakes anyways at least everything is combined with other natural run off which makes the toxic mix less concentrated. Not to mention that water was dumped directly into spawning areas where water quality is even more important. There must be some sort of bylaw against dumping your pool directly into a river. Did you hear anything back from the MNR? Did they give you any indication as to wether the act was illegal or not? And were you able to give them an actual address as I dont think they would follow up if they dont have a location to work off of.

 

[Spinninreel]

The Ministry said that they were going to investigate and might call me if there was any questions that they had. As of yet, I have not heard from them, so I do not think this thing went very far.