Free Press PoopBot: keeping a stink eye on sewage

By: Graeme Bruce Posted: 6:47 PM CDT Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2017

The Winnipeg Free Press web staff would like to introduce you to our newest employee: The PoopBot.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/03/2017 (2732 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Free Press web staff would like to introduce you to our newest employee: The PoopBot.

He’s got a nose for the stinkiest news. His newsbeat is pretty narrow, in fact he (or her? it?) really only has one job here at Free Press HQ: PoopBot tweets when poop hits city waterways. He will tweet about the amount of time the city’s combined sewers are (or may be) overflowing into the rivers. And when the city reports accidental sewage spills, he’ll tweet those out as well.

Where’s he getting his information from? The City of Winnipeg. Here, city officials report the likelihood of combined sewer overflows over the last 24 hours and here, officials report specific incidents.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES
Treated (and sometimes untreated) sewage bubbles up from underneath the surface of the red river just south of the Chief Peguis bridge. — PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Treated (and sometimes untreated) sewage bubbles up from underneath the surface of the red river just south of the Chief Peguis bridge.

The bot visits those sites once a day and reports back. You’re probably not checking these websites yourself all the time, so we created PoopBot to help you out.

Have any questions about the bot? Issues? Have a suggestion? Do you see him tweeting out nonesense? Drop us a line: webnews@freepress.mb.ca

Tweets by WFPPoopBot