By Pepper Parr
July 16th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
While City Council discussed flooding and made plans for a Special Council meeting on Frday to tal about the communications problems a local resident sent us the following:
This is the creek / tributary crossing Cavendish Dr. South of Upper Middle…. You know, in Ward 3….
Creek / tributary crossing Cavendish Dr. South of Upper Middle.
Large broken tree branches and limbs which have been carried down stream.
As of 12:30 this afternoon, there was no sign of City Works or Conservation Halton crews. The creek culverts on both sides are plugged with large broken tree branches and limbs which have been carried down stream with increased run off from the recent storms.
Resident reports that: “A lot of the debris in the creek was building up after Monday’s storm events.
“The creek actually started to crest over the banks, sidewalks and onto the roadway around 6am Tuesday.
“Enbridge Energy was shutting of gas supply to affected homes, and Burlington Hydro cut power to affected homes as well.
“There are an estimated 10 homes north of the creek and another 4 homes south which have had utilities cut as a safety measure.”
Ward 3 Councillor Rory Nisan attended part of the Council meeting – he was taking part in a Federation of Canadian Municipalities at the same time.
I cleaned out 4 drains in front of my home.Once done the flood on the road dropped to nothing in minutes.The item doing the most blocking was wood mulch from gardens near the curb.I understand in some communities this is illegal.What the situation in Burlington?
I agree with Stephen in that we should take a look at Oakville.
Keeping building massive hi-rise complexes south of the QEW will only add to the
problem of aging infrastructure in South Burlington.
It’s hard to believe that the “100” year floods are now decade floods! Rather than treat the problem to death, let’s try some preventative strategies. Flood plains act as strong stormwater mitigation systems. Rose community- now known as Millcroft, is a floodplain! So why would the province go AGAINST the wishes of council AND the region and the residents, approving homes to be built on a flood plain? Can’t wait for 10 years from now saying “ I told you so”!
Here is a suggestion that I believe all municipal councils need to look into. Grass cutting! Yes, I said grass cutting. Too many people and landscapers just blow the clippings onto the street. Guess what folks? These clippings now manage to find their way into the storm water system and turn into a large green “mushball” that blocks the flow. Ask the local sewer truck maintenance companies how much of this they clean out that they shouldn’t have too!
This is not only lazy on people parts, but is a main cause of blockage that does not need to happen!
Something to think about when you cut your lawns….
Sean you make a good point why did the city not think of advising residents of this and every spring remind them of the damage it can do. A common sense issue that costs nothing to put into practice. They have a by-law with a tremendous fine associated with it for feeding wild life due to a handful of incidents (that we agree needed action taken). However, blocked storm water systems that have drastically affected the lives of residents for years after the event is a different story.
Stephen – Sharman’s theories leave a lot to be desired as do the other six voting members of council – another improper theory is the will of council comes before mandatory legislation compliance as his Civic Square vote on July 17, 2024 clearly indicates!
When the 2014 Flood occurred Councillor Sharman told me and other neighbours that this was a “hundred year event”. Ninety years sure went by in a flash!
Interesting how we hear about the flood problems in Burlington, Mississauga and Toronto. However, we don’t hear a lot about the problems in Oakville, except for the Glen Abbey Golf Course. Here’s a few possible reasons:
1) Oakville is heavily focused on keeping high rise developments out of the south end of the town. The south end is older, and can’t absorb the amount of excess water from storm run-off. Mayor Burton and Oakville Council get it. One of these days our Council too may realize that there is a direct correlation between development and the capacity (or incapacity) of our stormwater and irrigation systems to be able to absorb the excess water.
2) Oakville has an ambitious program of tree planting. I visit Shell Park frequently with my dog. They are forever planting trees. The same is true of other areas throughout the town. Trees absorb water. Pavement doesn’t. Developers don’t grasp this concept either.
3) Oakville’s Parks department is assiduous in clearing tree debris from creeks. Oakville roads are much cleaner and easier to traverse than ours.
My neighbourhood got walloped in 2014. When the Mayor was campaigning in 2018 I personally took her down my street and introduced her to some of the 43 neighbours whose homes were severely damaged. I pointed out the fact that the streets in East Burlington, and elsewhere, don’t have enough storm drains. One would have thought that would have been done when the streets were re-paved. I introduced her to neighbours who, four years on at that point, were still battling with insurance companies, and trying to put their homes back together again.
We can spend money in this City so rich folks can have neighbourhood parties (i.e. Love your Neighbour). We can spend money on art in front of skating rinks. We can re-do the square in front of City Hall at a cost of $3 million which, frankly, looks perfectly fine, and doesn’t need re-doing. But we can’t find the $$’s for proper flood mitigation measures….or is the inference that the onus is on individual homeowners to assume the burden?
The Mayor, the Council, the City Manager, the Region, and especially Public Works, have a whole lot to answer for this time. However, they had better not use this event as an excuse to jack municipal taxes. If you want taxpayers to pony up for another tax increase well in excess of inflation then you had better damn well produce a fully costed plan with practical measures and a timeline to mitigate flood damage and control that involves more than spin-doctoring and gas-lighting.
10 years after the last major flood and we haven’t fixed a thing. Our Mayor and Council has had ample time to spend on infrastructure upgrades to mitigate flooding damage but has instead decided to spend our taxes on unnecessary projects to leave their stamp on things, absolutely disgusting. Marianne Meed Wards social media entourage sure has been busy deleting posts left on her Instagram account too, seems anything that questions her decisions gets the boot.
A few simple questions:
1. What’s the annual operation budget for maintenance of our storm water management systems?
2. Let’s see the workorders for maintenance of these systems for the last two years.
3. Storm water drainage is modeled and calculated based on precipitation events (1 in 100 year storms typically, in our area Hurricane Hazel from the 1950’s is the bench mark), catchment areas, channel (culvert) dimensions and down stream storage/equalization which sets the hydraulic gradeline.
3.1 How did this week’s precipitation event compare to a 1 in 100 year storm?
3..1.2 What were the culvert dimensions when the engineering modelling of storm water was done, and what are those dimensions today (lack of maintenance causes culvert cross sectional area to be reduced compared to design leading to backups and flooding)?
3.1.3 What monitoring is done of storage/equalization ponds and what were the levels prior to this week’s storms?
I suspect we will hear lots about climate change, follow the math (hydraulic and financial), it will tell the truth.
Build it on water and it will come. Good planning? Apparently we learned nothing from the last water event. Know why? It is way easier to work on projects like Civic Square and other non-essential touch feely projects when in fact ensuring this did not happen again is the real job of municipal government.
It’s actually worse than that Joe. On the 4 year anniversary of the August 4, 2014 Burlington flood, in the middle of the 2018 municipal election, the Meed Ward campaign released a comprehensive assessment of the flood mitigation strategies and provisions that were enabled/enacted through the Goldring administration. Not surprisingly, Meed Ward was very critical of both the efficacy and the comprehensiveness of those strategies/provisions. In particular, the use of the backflow valve technology and the homeowner subsidies offered were brought into serious question. By contrast, she tabled a program that was largely based on the Vancouver integrated water management measures and that featured the use of permeable surfaces, tree canopy and recapture/recycling processes to use rainfall as a regular, natural resource. The program seemed to resonate with the electorate and was a major differentiator between the Meed Ward and Goldring campaigns. However, little if any of the measures that Meed Ward recommended have been pursued let alone implemented under her administration. You will note our current use of permeable surfaces rather than asphalt and concrete, our coherent tree management program and our responsive flood plain management – not. We do seem to easily declare a “Climate Emergency” but it has roughly the same force as a civic square flag raising for National Podiatrist Day – no offence meant to practitioners of the foot intended.
Exactly our thoughts Joe. Very sad though that so many are negatively affected by this hypocritical, selfish approach of the Mayor My Way and her cohorts to municipal governance.
I live in ward 3 and there was a great deal of flooding and damage to homes in my neighbourhood. When I asked a friend who lives in ward 4 about the damage there, he responded with –
“Our Councillor Shawna sent an email indicating that Burlington emergency services were responding to a lot of calls.
I am waiting for a photo of our Mayor in hip waders personally ordering the flooding to stop. You read it here first.”
Oh my! My friend btw is normally quite apolitical.