Untreated wastewater spilled into the Red River for two-and-a-half hours Monday morning as alarms failed to go off. A report from the City of Winnipeg said two automated bypass gates at the North End Water Pollution Control Centre (NEWPCC) “opened unexpectedly,” spilling 9.8 megalitres of raw, untreated wastewater into the Red River. That’s enough sewage to fill the Cindy Klassen Recreation Complex Pool nearly four times. “No alarm went off when the gates opened,” the report said. The spill started at roughly 1:10 a.m. and ended at 3:47 a.m. when staff closed the gates, the city report said. “Our staff learned about the problem when a different alarm went off elsewhere in the plant because the wastewater flow had changed.” The city is still investigating why the gates opened and why the alarm for the gates failed to go off. CTV News has reached out to the office of Mike Moyes, Manitoba’s minister of Environment and Climate Change, for comment.
