‘Afraid of the water’? Life in a city that dumps billions of litres of raw sewage into lakes and rivers. Winnipeg, capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Manitoba.
10 billion litres of sewage are dumped into Winnipeg’s lakes and rivers each year. Some avoid touching river water altogether — but others say the untreated sewage is not as bad as it sounds.
Winnipeg’s combined sewer network has a problem: during heavy rains and big spring melts the old pipes — built before 1960 — are designed to release excess sewage and runoff into the city’s iconic rivers. The result is a river system with frequent E. Coli spikes that residents are too afraid to fully enjoy.
