The city is slated to review its policies around test maintenance hole requirements.
Ward 4 Coun. Paulin Fortin introduced a successful motion during a recent operations committee meeting of city council requesting the review.
The request follows last year’s report that the requirement for test maintenance holes have been sporadically forgiven by the planning committee of city council to help save property owners the approximately $15,000 cost to install them.
Last year, planning committee chair and Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier described their approach as ”hodgepodge,” at which time he requested an internal review of the policy.
“It seems to be coming up more frequently now as an issue, especially with the increased costs of doing development,” he said. “It’s worth a look.”
Test maintenance holes are located at the edge of properties, and serve as an access point for the city to test the content of a specific property’s wastewater, which allows them to narrow in on where contaminants are coming from.
They allow “licensed wastewater treatment staff or our environmental compliance officers to take samples for flow measurements or measure water/wastewater flows from an address,” city acting director of water/wastewater treatment and compliance Michael Loken told Sudbury.com last year.
The city’s sewer use bylaw, which took effect in 2011, requires test maintenance holes to be dug at all commercial, institutional, industrial and multi-unit residential buildings (buildings with three or more units, Loken clarified).
Commercial, institutional and industrial properties are included because they tend to discharge different material than residential properties while multi-unit residential are included because of the possibility of concentrated amounts of mainly fats and oils.
The requirement for test maintenance holes is automatic when it comes to new development.
However, during several occasions last year, the city’s elected officials voted to exempt this requirement.
Fortin’s motion requests a report by the end of June which highlights opportunities to change:
- The number of units within a building for which a test maintenance hole will not be required.
- The size and use of commercial establishments which could be considered low risk and could be exempt from the requirement for a test maintenance hole.
