Saint John, New Brunswick harbour cleanup
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The Saint John, New Brunswick harbour cleanup is an infrastructure project that will bring an end to the practice of discharging raw sewage into the waterways of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The $88 million initiative involves completing a third wastewater treatment plant in east Saint John, and diverting existing outfalls to it through lift or pumping stations[citation needed]. Currently the initiative is awaiting full funding announcements from the municipal, provincial and federal governments.
Saint John currently discharges 16 million litres of raw sewage into its harbour and streams every day[citation needed]. This is equivalent to six Olympic-sized swimming pools every 24 hours. The practice has been going on in Saint John for hundreds of years. Although Saint John is not the only municipality in Canada that dumps untreated wastewater into its environment, it is unique in that its outfalls flow into local streams, forming open sewers that run through the center of the city, thus creating third-world sanitation conditions in Canada’s oldest incorporated city. Canadian Guidelines suggest that waters with counts of greater than 200 fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml sample are unsafe for human contact (such as wading, swimming, fishing, or swimming of pets)[citation needed]. Marsh Creek (near the geographic center of the city) routinely exceeds 5 million fecal bacteria per 100 ml water sample. Dutchman’s Creek, which is situated across from an elementary school, is several times worse than Marsh Creek in this regard. The human health risks associated with coming into contact with these waters include E. coli, cholera, typhoid, amoebic dysentery, Hepatitis A, and a myriad of other bacterial, fungal and viral contaminants. Saint John's scenic Harbour Passage walking trail adjuncts sewage outfalls in several places that contaminate the harbour with human waste and unsafe for human contact. A recent ACAP-SJ/University of New Brunswick study also found the fish in the waterways are contaminated with components from the raw sewage, making handling them another human health risk. Added to the human health risks are the unsightly personal hygene products (tampons, condoms, toilet paper, etc) that are strewn across the beaches and hang from the vegetation along the shoreline.
