Northumberland braces for wetter weather
Measures are being taken in Port Hope and Cobourg
As Port Hope’s Ganaraska River overflowed last month, chunks of ice slid across local roads.
Port Hope crews worked through the night and by morning the ice broke up, flowing into Lake Ontario.
The overflow is often expected and town officials say the costs are part of regular operations to cover springtime flooding.
Lake Ontario reached record high water levels last spring, washing out lakeside paths in Port Hope and causing erosion at Monk’s Cove in addition to flooding the beach in Cobourg.
Last June in Cobourg, heavy rainfalls closed several roads and vehicles became stuck.
The average Lake Ontario outflow during the month of February was the highest in recorded history, according to a press release from the International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board, which monitors water levels on the upper Great Lakes, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.
However, a stable ice cover in the St. Lawrence River has meant an increased outflow under the ice, and as a result, Lake Ontario levels have fallen below those recorded at this time in 2017, the board reported.
Water levels are unlikely to reach flooding levels like they did last spring, said Mike Smith, flood operations officer for the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority.
“Those were record-breaking,” said Smith.
As of mid-March, Smith said, the water levels were high in Lake Erie and pushing high volumes of water down the St. Lawrence River.
However, Smith added, that unless there are very heavy rainfalls like last spring, the water levels on Lake Ontario should remain below the levels reached last year.
In Port Hope, initiatives are underway to mitigate flooding. The municipality has implemented a stormwater action plan to clean up existing stormwater ponds and maintain storm lines, said Jeanette Davidson, acting director of the works and engineering department, in an emailed response from the municipality.
Camera inspections on sanitary lines are locating areas of infiltrations where water is entering the sanitary lines. By redirecting roof leaders to flow across lawns rather than into sanitary systems and fixing ground water leaks into the system the municipality can prevent the surge charging that has been happening during large storm events, said Davidson.
“We have also had more freezethaw events, which contributes to road damage (pot holes) this includes asphalt, surface treated and gravel roads," stated Davidson.
Cobourg has several initiatives underway to help prepare for more extreme weather events due to climate change, said Stephen Peacock, chief administrative officer for the Town of Cobourg.
“We are seeing more frequent weather events. We want to be prepared for that,” said Peacock.
Aimed at mitigating flooding issues, the Midtown Creek project, a $1.6-million initiative, will store and control flood waters in a new flood detention pond located in an area off Division Street, south of Elgin Street, said Peacock.
The new stormwater management pond and a concrete outlet structure aims to control the release of water on Midtown Creek.
The project is receiving provincial funding.
Another project comes through the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority, which has been contacted by the town to conduct a full analysis of stormwater in Cobourg.
Leslie Benson, interim director of Watershed Services, said the project is analyzing all stormwater sewers in Cobourg and mapping where there are no storm sewers, where the sewers are undersized and where they are adequate.
Benson said there is a climate change aspect to the project. In the past there were two methods to calculate stormwater runoffs. A more conservative method calculated the worst case scenario — with a maximum of water travelling through the stormwater pipes, said Benson.
That more conservative method is now used exclusively as the higher water levels are becoming more common, she said.
“We know storms are getting worse,” said Benson.