A massive raw sewage spill from Ottawa's wastewater system into the Ottawa River in 2006 was mainly the result of incompetent management, the city's auditor general said Wednesday.

"They had the resources, they had the training, they had the tools, they were responsible to provide all the [processes], the procedures — and they failed to do that," said Alain Lalonde as he released a 107-page report on the incident.

Lalonde's audit looked into the spill of more than 760 million litres of sewage — for which the city was fined $562,000 earlier in October — and why city council wasn't made aware of the situation.

Lalonde found that regulations were ignored and that managers, who were professional engineers, failed to perform the duties required of their positions. In particular, there had not been enough preventative maintenance, Lalonde said.

The August 2006 spill was blamed on a sewage gate that became jammed open for more than a week after a storm. Lalonde was asked to investigate after city council learned about the spill in May 2008.

The city was subsequently charged and convicted under the Ontario Water Resources Act for allowing a spill that could impair water quality and for failing to notify the province's Environment Ministry of the spill in a timely fashion. The city fired three employees and suspended a fourth in relation to the spill, which was blamed for bacterial contamination that closed the swimming area of Petrie Island beach for weeks in the summer of 2006.

Lalonde said Wednesday that the front-line workers who fixed the malfunctioning regulator gate and the engineer who initially reported the incident were the only ones who did their jobs right.

Gate problems known since 1992

His report noted that the gate that jammed had been inspected and found to have problems as far back as 1992. It used to have an alarm system connected to a pager to alert staff of problems, but the alarm system broke down and was never repaired. In addition, there was a decrease in the number of inspections at the gates to a frequency that Lalonde called "woefully inadequate" and that did not meet provincial standards.

The report recommends that the city:

• overhaul its wastewater system maintenance and safety procedures;
• make significant improvements to its process for monitoring sewage flows;
• consider pursuing a complaint with the Professional Engineers of Ontario concerning the staff identified in the audit;
• improve its communication and reporting procedures to ensure compliance with regulations across all departments and to ensure senior managers, council and regulatory bodies are informed in a timely manner.

City management has agreed with the recommendations.

Nancy Schepers, the deputy city manager in charge of infrastructure, said the report was a blow to the city's credibility with the public concerning how facilities are operated and maintained.

"I think there were some gaps identified, so I was disappointed," she said in response to the report.

Orléans Coun. Bob Monette, who represents the ward that includes Petrie Island, wanted the report to reassure people who live in Ottawa.

"The residents … have got to know that we are on top of things and we will not tolerate or allow the system to fail again," he said prior to its release.

He added that he hoped implementing the report's recommendations would ensure the situation never occurs again.