About the project:
The City of London has launched a new webpage online to share real-time and historical information about overflows and bypasses from the City’s wastewater facilities. By creating a publicly accessible internet resource that shows current overflow activity, Londoners are provided with a new tool to help them make decisions regarding activities in areas that could be affected.
The new real-time notification website can be viewed here
We are also collecting feedback about this webpage. Please share your comments with us
The City regularly posts information about overflow and bypass volumes and locations to the webpage london.ca/sewers. Information from this year and past years is available online.
Overflows and bypasses
A sewer system overflow occurs when sanitary sewers are overwhelmed by stormwater or other unwanted water during wet weather events. Overflows result in untreated wastewater being directly discharged to local waterways from the sewer system, at pumping stations and upstream of treatment plant inlets.
A wastewater treatment plant bypass occurs when the flow exceeds capacity of a treatment process within the treatment plant. During a bypass, partially treated wastewater and storm water may be discharged. The wastewater treatment plant fully treats as much sewage as possible prior to any bypass, and then provides partial treatment to everything else.
Overflows and bypasses are a last resort measure to prevent basement flooding and damage to treatment processes during severe weather.
