City scrambling to contain spill of petroleum-looking product into Don River

The city is scramblingto clean up and determine why a petroleum-like product has leaked out of one of the city's sewer tanksand into the Don River.

Toronto Water got a call two weeks ago about a fuel-like sheen on the waterway near BayviewAvenue and Gerrard Street East, Bill Shea, director of distribution and collection, told CBC Toronto on Thursday.

Staff immediately put out booms and absorbent material to absorb the substance and stop it from spreading further, Shea said.

The city will run tests to determine the exact nature of the substance.

Shea added that the substance appears to be leaching from a nearby brownfield and getting into a large tank that's part of the sewer system on the west side of Bayview.

Brownfieldmonitored by the province

The brownfield is registered with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, meaning it's monitored by the province, Shea said.

It took some time for the city to determine exactly where the substance was coming from, according to Shea. Now that staff has figured it out, they will begin work on solving the problem, he said.

City staff will build a road into the area this weekend,fence it off and separatethe offending product from the water, according to Shea.

Pumping out the tank should only take hours, he said.

"The only problem here is that it appears that this petroleum-fuel oil is coming in through the walls of the tank and getting into the water," he said.

So Toronto Water staff will then have to inspect and repair the tank, a process that could take up to a week.

"But at least by then we've taken care of the problem," he said.

'The fuel smell was overpowering'

Mark Mattson, founder of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, said Thursday a resident called his office about nine days ago. When he went to inspect the site, he saw the efforts the city was making to clean up and contain what had spilled, but it appeared to him as though the leak "had been going on for some time."

"The oil smell, the fuel smell, was overpowering," Mattson told CBC Toronto.

Mattson noted that discharging fuel into a river is against the law, and said he would like to see the clean-up happen faster. He also called for aninvestigation into how the leak from the brownfield happened.

"You need to hold people accountable when they pollute our rivers or streams," he said. "Otherwise, there is nodeterrent for others."

Hard to know how much has leaked into river

When asked how much of the substance may have actually leaked into the river, Shea said it's hard to know because city staff could only start containing it once they learned of the problem. Even with the booms and the absorbent material, "it's hard to get 100 per cent," he said.

While the brownfield is private property, it's up to the city to run the clean-up because the substance has impacted city water. However, the city will go back to the landowner about recouping some or all of the clean-up costs, Shea said.

It will also be up to the Ministry of the Environment to assess whether any laws have been broken, he said.