The city of Montreal says all sewage will be treated again by the end of the evening Saturday, now that work on the southeast sewage interceptor, the system at the heart of Montreal's controversial sewage dump, is finished.
A 17-kilometre stretch of the interceptor was back in service Friday, meaning sewage coming from those who live east of Joliette St. in the Mercier-Hochelaga Maisonneuve borough has been treated for about a day.
The work was completed in 89 hours, the city said, and 4.9 billion litres of sewage at most was dumped into the river.
The dump was slated to last seven days at the most. It began at midnight last Wednesday.
About a dozen people attended a protest in Old Montreal Saturday afternoon to show their opposition to the plan.
There is still work to be done on a snow collector. As a result, there will still be sewage drained into the river, for seven hours a day for a maximum of 10 days. The flow of sewage will be considerably slower than it was for the initial dump (0.8 square metres per second versus 13 square metres per second). As a result, the ban on water activities near Habitat 67 and the King Edward Quay at the Old Port remains in effect until the work is done.
