Ontario Place sewage plan a health issue, say groups opposed to redevelopment

Local politicians and waterfront users say the province's sewage plan for the redevelopment of Ontario Place could make a popular part of the waterfront a health risk for beachgoers, rowers and swimmers.

Currently, the province's unpublicized plan is to alter a combined sewage pipe that empties into Lake Ontario so that it instead empties behind an existing breakwater, directly into the West Channel. 

The change would prevent the pollution of a future public beach on the western part of the Ontario Place redevelopment, where sewage currently empties, the province says. But a group speaking out against the plan says the change will pollute the West Channel instead.

The redevelopment would allow Therme, a private Austrian firm, to build a large spa and waterfront on the land. Organizers of a Tuesday news conference opposing the redevelopment say they got hold of the plans at a private consultation held with "select water user groups."

Landscape architect Walter Kehm, who resigned from the redevelopment project in 2023 over environmental concerns, told reporters that the plan would dump sewage near the shore in water with little flow.

"We're creating an entrapped bathtub," he said. "So here we [would] have a major public recreation waterway [and] one of Toronto's major beaches being befouled by sewage water." 

Kehm was referring to Sunnyside Beach, which is actually west of the channel. He and other speakers noted that other popular spots are also adjacent to the channel, including Marilyn Bell Park, The Boulevard Club and the Argonaut Rowing Club.

Kehm called the plan a public health issue that would create a breeding ground for E. coli, Listeria and other water-borne diseases.

The province, which is working on the redevelopment with the city, says no part of the plan will degrade water quality in the area.

"Mitigation measures will improve environmental conditions for everyone beyond the current level, including for other West Channel users like rowers and dragon boat racers," Ash Milton, a spokesperson for the minister of infrastructure, said in an email.

Longer-term infrastructure work tied to the redevelopment is still under assessment, Milton said.

But some who use the water remain concerned.

Ann Elisabeth Samson, co-chair of the advocacy group Ontario Place for All, told reporters Tuesday that she's spent many hours rowing and swimming in the Western Channel.

"The Ford government is determined to shove this enormous mall-like, mega spa down our throats, cutting off our access and making an even bigger mess of our lakefront," she said.