Southwest Winnipeg residents asked to limit water use as sewage continues to spill into Red River

The City of Winnipeg is asking residents in southwest Winnipeg to reduce their water flow, as sewage continues to spill into the Red River near Fort Garry Bridge after a pipe broke earlier this month.

In order to limit flows into the system, residents and businesses are being asked to only flush toilets when necessary, take shorter showers and avoid baths, run only full loads of laundry or dishes, hold off washing their cars, and turn off taps when shaving or brushing their teeth, the city said in a Tuesday news release.

The request applies to those in St. Norbert, Fort Richmond, Richmond West, Waverley West, Bridgwater, Linden Woods, Linden Ridge, Whyte Ridge, Waverley Heights and at the University of Manitoba.

The sewage spill started on Feb. 7, when one of the two pipes that cross the Red River at 3100 Abinojii Mikanah (formerly Bishop Grandin Boulevard) broke.

The pipes, built in 1970, direct sewage from the South End Sewage Treatment Plant.  The city found a leak in one of them during a routine inspection, last November. 

It took that pipe out of service, leaving the other pipe to handle sewage flow across the river.

On Feb. 5, the city started working on a bypass system, made up of temporary new pipes, that would allow sewage to continue being directed to the treatment plant.

But two days later, the remaining working pipe broke, releasing sewage into the river.

By Feb. 13, more than 135 million litres of untreated sewage had been unleashed into the river.

Since then, the city has been working on a bypass system to stop the leak, but sewage continues to flow into the river.

The city has sped up its work on the bypass system since, the release says. Though it's been running since Feb. 17, it's not fully complete and only one of the two new pumps is up and running.

The other is undergoing tests to fix mechanical issues that crews found last week.

The city says the amount of sewage being spilled "has gone down considerably."

But "the flow in the sewer varies during the day, and during peak flow times, the single bypass pump does not always keep up. When this happens, the excess flow in the sewer is spilled into the river," the release says.