OTTAWA, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- A faulty regulator caused 1.7 million gallons of raw sewage to flow into Canada's Ottawa River, closing two Petrie Island beaches, officials said.
"It's unwise to have full body contact with the river," Dr. Isra Levy, a city health official, said.
The discharge was blamed on a steel plate that clogged a pipe in a regulator, located near Prime Minister Stephen Harper's home on Sussex Drive, the Ottawa Sun reported Saturday.
The same regulator was blamed for a 26 million-gallon discharge in 2006. The Ontario provincial government fined the city $560,000 for that sewage spill.
Meanwhile, city officials said 5.5 million gallons of combined raw sewage and rain flowed into the river after Wednesday's storm, bringing the year's discharge of untreated sewage mixed with rain to more than 195 million gallons, the Sun reported.
