This part of the presentation given by City Engineer, Mario Sonego concerning residential basement flooding in South Windsor. Also present was an official from the Spanish Company building the Herb Gray Parkway. Although Mr. Sonego spoke as the HG Parkway as posing no problem - the HG Parkway rep. said nothing and did not seem to avail herself of any questions. Mayor - Elect Drew Dilkens was there and spoke well. Councillor - Elect Fred Francis was the last to speak at the very end. Francis was animated and repetitively guaranteed assistance - but spoke absolutely nothing of his election campaign plan promise. Noticeably absent was any ERCA rep. ( ERCA s mandate is our watersheds) or Planning Dept. reps. Some of the Citys presentation was lifted from a City of Saskatoon presentation. Although the Ward One Election Campaign is of course long over, I was still surprised to see that - other than myself (and Councillor-Elect Francis) no other Ward One Candidate was present. (Oddly, for a meeting that had 100 or more residents present, their was no media presence at all) So much for the electoral community concerns. I know at least one other Ward One Candidate who studied this issue could have added his insight. Then again, Mr. Sonego avoided my question/comments until the end when he saw it was fruitless. Mr. Sonego promised to post the presentation - so a more complete and clearer copy will be available than my photos. Sonego explained the attributes of downspout disconnection in keeping excess storm water out of the system - but not the shortfalls of the City program for such. Sonego also explained the Citys partially subsidized backwater valve installation program and addressed some of the history of the various subdivisions and building code changes. However, relative to some of my comments/questions as to long range comprehensive solutions and particularly innovative new methodologies proven elsewhere - he was largely silent (I will expand on this in another posting). Contrasting residents comments about increases in basement flooding events since the expansion of the St. Clair College Parking lots, additional neighbourhood construction and the huge presence of the HG Parkway changes in the last couple of years (HG Parkway still does not have their holding ponds and various other water control measures operational yet) - Sonego spoke of Climate Change as the culprit and offered no comprehensive plan as a solution. Sonego did say that the City would be hiring an outside Consulting Engineering Firm to study the problem independent of the City. A lot of other points, but I will keep this article brief. Another oddity I thought though, was: 1.) That Sonego said the City only keeps individual home plans only for a year and the City occasionally has difficulty in locating some of their own storm water service entries at times. 2). That if need be, the City has and will continue to discharge not fully treated water into the Detroit River when their are storm events. Although certainly not the only community that does this - I was surprised that it is not the chief priority of the City to alleviate this environmental concern. Sonego also said that we are limited by LaSalle as to how much storm water we can send down to the river through LaSalle. All the more reason to change the Planning and Public works mindset as to even sending as much unnecessary storm water as we do now. The cause being poorly planned sprawl subdivisions and far too much hardscape. (More to follow soon).
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:47:32 +0000
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