Here’s a piece of good news after a long, difficult
summer for hundreds of families whose basements flooded with stormwater and sewage in July.
Toronto’s Public Works and Infrastructure Committee voted today in favour of adding Birch Cliff and the rest of Ward 36 to the list of priority areas in the city-wide plan to alleviate basement flooding.
This is the list of 32 priority areas that were identified after the massive rainstorm in Toronto in 2005. After that storm, City Council voted to conduct environmental assessments in priority areas and allocated $800 million for remedial work to be done by 2015.
We were never on the list because Ward 36 didn’t experience very much flooding in 2005.
Here’s how we were designated a priority
Councillor Gary Crawford petitioned the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee today to include Ward 36. The committee’s chair, Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong then moved a motion and it passed by a vote of 3-2.
“It’s in the hopper now,” Crawford says. “It’s part of the already existing infrastructure program we’re doing and from my perspective that’s great.”
Water levels were thigh-high at Wirral Court, Chine Drive area
In his petition, Crawford argued that Ward 36 should be considered a priority based on an Environmental Assessment in Ward 36 that was completed in 2011.
Ward 36 EA recommends five key improvements
We’ve reported on that EA before and were essentially told by Toronto Water that it didn’t count because its primary goal was to deal with water quality issues in Lake Ontario along the Scarborough shore.
Councillor Crawford argued that the EA should count because it also dealt with basement flooding issues and actually made five key recommendations that staff told him would “greatly improve the infrastructure in the area and bring down the risk of having what happened in July and August again.”
Separating combined sewers?
The measures include things such as replacing existing storm sewers, separating the combined sewers and installing in-line storage tanks. The total cost of those repairs was targeted at $9.4 million dollars.
What makes it interesting is that remedial work has only been completed in four of the 32 priority areas. Some of them don’t even have environmental assessments done, and they take two years.
Still needs Council approval
Expensive repairs on Kalmar Avenue
Before everybody breaks out the champagne, remember this still needs to go to the full Toronto City Council next month.
Crawford describes it as “a pretty significant first step” but warns it will take time and still needs Council approval:
“Don’t forget it was a 3-2 vote so there were a couple of council members who had issues and I’ll be doing what I can to ensure it’s a positive outcome for the people of Scarborough southwest.”
Crawford says the results of the EA will be available to the community at the public meeting scheduled for September 19th. He’s also confirmed that the format of the Ward 36 meeting will be different from the meeting held next door in Ward 35 last week.
He says they’re still working out the details with the public consultation unit at Toronto Water, but there will be Q & A sessions with both himself and representatives from Toronto Water who can talk about specific problems.
