Introduction: Combined Sewer Overflows
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IN THIS SECTION
OUR SEWER'S HISTORY
A look at the evolution of the City of Kingston sewer system
BYPASS LOG
Cumulative data on historical combined-sewer overflows in the City of Kingston.
WHAT WE'VE DONE
An overview of the work - and the cost - to date
aimed at reducing bypasses.
MAP
CSO CONTROL TANKS
This map show the location of Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) control tanks and other key features of the city's sewage system.
[PDF 442KB]
DOWNLOAD
MOE'S ASSESSMENT
Learn about the Ministry of Environment's Review and Assessment of the City's Pollution Control Plan. The review was done as part of the
Ministry's assessment of the plan and the City's progress related to the control of overflows from the sanitary system.
[PDF 954KB]
PDF HELP
ADOBE READER
The freely available Adobe Reader software can be used to view the PDF documents on the Utilities Kingston Web site.
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Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), which are also called bypasses can occur in a combined sewer system. A combined sewer system consists of one sewer that
collects and transfers both sanitary wastewater and storm water to the sewage treatment plant for treatment. These systems were generally installed in the turn
of the 20th century (late 1800s to mid 1900s) and were the best technology of the time.
Around the 1950s, new technologies and philosophies emerged and more stringent regulations were implemented. The most significant change was to have separate
sewer systems for sanitary wastewater and storm water in new developments. The sanitary wastewater was collected and sent to the sewage plants and the storm
water was collected and sent to a nearby lake or river.
CSOs are the discharge of untreated storm water and sanitary wastewater runoff to nearby bodies of water. These bypass events occur during heavy rainfall and
snow melt, or because of equipment failure. The CSOs are used to alleviate the overloading of the combined sewer system to prevent sewer backups in residential
and commercial buildings and local streets.
One other contributing factor to overloading the combined sewer system is the loss of sewer capacity due to extraneous flow. Extraneous flow is basically any
flow that is not household sanitary waste or storm water in a combined area. As shown in the illustration above, examples are ground water leaking into the sewer pipe from cracks, discharge from
basement sump pumps and discharges from roof drains connected directly to the sanitary sewer.
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