FLOODING THE SYSTEM
Lakeshore sewers pushed to limit
Rain, melting snow and semifrozen ground combined to push Lakeshore’s sewer system to full capacity prompting a request from town officials to ask residents to stop using as much water as possible until mid-evening. Wednesday.
Town officials rescinded the request by 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and residents were free once again to resume normal water use.
The sanitary sewer system was at capacity from West Puce Road to Rourke Line, and Lake St. Clair to the County Road 22 corridor, along with neighbouring side streets.
“What can occur in a lot of homes in town is they don’t realize their lines are already at capacity,” said Nelson Cavacas, Lakeshore’s director of engineering and infrastructure.
“Their check valve will be energized and they can flood themselves internally doing their laundry because their lines are full.”
Cavacas added reports of water getting into basements has varied within the same neighbourhood depending how low lying the area is and style of home.
“If you’re up a bit and you have a home without a real deep basement (raised ranch), you might not be at risk of any problems,” Cavacas said. “Low lying areas are the problem.”
With a break in the incessant rain of the past three days, Cavacas’s hope that the system would have a chance to catch up by late Wednesday evening came to fruition. The town had hoped to speed up that process and avoid unnecessary flooding in homes by issuing the afternoon request to avoid doing laundry, running dishwashers, taking showers and flushing toilets.
“We’re fortunate the system isn’t as inundated as during the big rain last August,” Cavacas said. “The sewer system west of Puce River is operating normally.
Cavacas said it took the system an entire day to catch up after the rain stopped falling last August.
The main problem for the town is the pipes delivering the water to the sanitary treatment plant can’t handle the volume as opposed to the plant’s capacity to process the water.
“The sewer and storm water systems are separate, but storm water is seeping into the sanitary system at various places,” Cavacas said.
“There’s no place for it to go because the ground is semi-frozen, so it’s finding ways in. We’ve had isolated issues with sections of road where debris wasn’t allowing the water to drain as well.
“The town has invested money this year to more aggressively try and seal up the system better to combat this problem.”