Residents, businesses raise a stink
There’s a bad smell coming up from sewer repairs in Hintonburg, and Ottawa has stopped work until it can figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
The solvent smell in homes and businesses on and near Wellington Street isn’t harmful, says the councillor for Kitchissippi, Jeff Leiper. But it is potent.
And it seems to come from the site where the city is putting a synthetic liner inside existing sewers.
“It’s awful. It comes up from our washrooms in the basement,” said Faye Kaplan, one of the owners of the Cake Shoppe at 1200 Wellington St.
“And it also seems to come through our drains where we wash dishes.
“It has been happening for quite a long time. We just thought maybe we’re not using our washrooms enough,” she said.
It’s hard to sell cakes when the shop smells of chemicals, so the staff have been burning incense candles.
So far, it seems to be working.
Leiper’s website describes the repair system as “Cured-In-Place, a no-dig pipe repair that uses a synthetic resin for curing the sewer lining to prevent leaks and cracks.