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The city councillor for Glen Cairn, a community hit by flooding for the third time in 13 years, says she was not given a report from 2003 that detailed the high risk of flooding in the neighbourhood and possible fixes.
Peggy Feltmate, the councillor for Kanata South, said Monday she was not aware of a 2003 Cumming Coburn report commissioned by the city that described how low-lying southern streets in Glen Cairn are “an area with a high flooding risk for properties,” and that “remedial flood control measures are needed to minimize the flooding risk.”
Those very same streets — such as Dundegan Drive and Glamorgan Drive — were among the hardest hit during an intense rainstorm on July 24. Many homeowners found themselves with basements backed up with more than a metre of sewage and stormwater. Some have no insurance due to repeated flooding and have lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods and furnishings.
The report recommended a series of changes: raising the road surface at the northwest entrance of Dundegan, providing an overflow channel and culvert on Glamorgan and lowering Castlefrank Road at Glamorgan. The engineering consultants also urged that a more detailed drainage analysis be done.
Feltmate said that she doesn’t know whether the recommended work was carried out. The city was asked last week whether the recommended works were done but has not yet offered an answer.
Feltmate, elected in 2003, said she concentrated on the major stormwater work that was decided on for the area: a $7-million project to increase the capacity of the Carp River to handle stormwater, including the installation of large culverts.
She was on a cruise in Europe, celebrating her 40th wedding anniversary with her husband, when this latest flooding happened in the ward. She was able to keep in touch with her office staff by e-mail, then returned this past weekend. Feltmate said it was discouraging and upsetting to see her ward again hit with flooding, affecting an estimated 636 households just in Kanata South. She said a couple of residents who have gone through three floods have told her they want the city to buy them out.
“I don’t see how the city could allow this to happen again,” said Feltmate. “I have to believe there’s a solution to this. Maybe it’s going to cost the city a lot of money.”
Feltmate’s staff has been trying to gather information, including observations from longtime residents of the area, to try to figure out what has gone wrong. An interim report on the July flood will be presented at city council on Sept. 2.
The city was already being sued by Glen Cairn residents over the last flood at Glen Cairn in 2002 but that case has been moving through the court system at a snail’s pace.
Feltmate says this third flood is causing her to have doubts about the way the city is growing. She noted that paved development typically eliminates natural drainage courses and creates a faster flow of water. She noted that the city has seen a lot of growth in areas where flooding is a risk, sometimes on orders from the Ontario Municipal Board. Feltmate says the development of neighbouring subdivision, Bridlewood, may have increased the flow of stormwater through Glen Cairn beyond what municipal planners counted on.
Feltmate says the most recent flooding data must be added to the calculations for studies on Kanata West, a huge new development that has been highly controversial because of concerns about flooding.
Ottawa Riverkeeper Meredith Brown said that, though the storm caused residents terrible hardship it is part of what the city needs to prepare for as climate change brings more intense weather. Brown said she has been warning the city for years about development in Kanata because of a record of flooding and building too close to watercourses there, but to no avail.
She said flooding of the type experienced there is accelerated by the elimination of creeks, wetlands and any permeable landscape that absorbs water. It’s replaced in new developments by asphalt and concrete that create surges of stormwater. Brown says the solution is to encourage development that allows water to infiltrate the ground and drain more slowly to creeks and rivers. That means things such as interlocking brick rather than asphalt, green roofs, ditches, gravel driveways, getting people to use rain barrels and maintaining wetland areas.
Brown says she will make her case to city councillors but she’s concerned that the city is determined to push ahead with its development plans regardless of the risk of another flood like the one in Kanata last month.
“I wish it would wake them up but I’m not convinced it’s going to. They seem pretty set on a path there,” said Brown.
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