The Courts v. The Common Man

In the nineteenth century Toronto’s waterfront was a cesspool. The municipal government located its first landfill dumps on the water’s edge in 1835. That same year it started emptying its sewers into the harbour … and didn’t stop for three-quarters of a century. Rotting garbage and raw sewage soon filled the shoreline slips, necessitating frequent dredging. In response, the city simply extended its sewers further into the harbour. By 128mid-century, a two-foot-thick carpet of sewage stretched more than 300 feet from the shore. ²