Council will be asked to approve clearing a drainage ditch seen here from the dike along the Tantramar River near the town’s main sewage lagoons
It looks like Phase Two of the Lorne Street political, financial and environmental roller-coaster ride is nearing its end.
Town councillors are expected to approve spending $210,000 next week to complete the $1.9 million project that so far has kept the once flood-prone Lorne Street dry during recent heavy rain storms while creating a new 40,000 cubic metre waterfowl pond surrounded by walking trails in downtown Sackville.
However, Phase Two also came with the discovery of about 14,000 tonnes of soil laced with toxic contaminants including petroleum, aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals that cost $525,000 to haul away.
At their meeting next week, councillors will be asked to approve a staff recommendation to spend the $210,000 that remains in the Phase Two budget to clear out ditches running across the industrial park to an aboiteau that drains into the Tantramar River near the town’s main sewage lagoons.
Town engineer Dwayne Acton said that money would also buy a heavy-duty, six-inch pump to lift water that the aboiteau can’t handle over the dike and into the river.
Town Engineer Dwayne Acton
Acton outlined several options for spending the remaining money at council’s meeting this week, but recommended that councillors approve clearing the ditches and installing the pump as the preferred one for now.
“It fits within the budget that we currently have,” Acton said, adding that clearing the ditches would allow more flood water to be stored before it’s discharged to the river.
“[It] will give us extra capacity, give us extra flow out to an existing aboiteau,” he said, “and it also meets budget.”
Acton acknowledged that instead, council could choose to apply the money toward building a 20,000 cubic metre flood water retention pond in the old Sackville quarry or it could invest in more pipes and culverts under Charles Street, but both projects would require substantially more money that the town would have to come up with on its own.
He pointed out that Phase Two of the Lorne Street project is jointly financed, with the federal government paying half the cost while the province and town each contribute a quarter.
Acton said council could also choose to do nothing, which would mean returning $105,000 to the federal government, $52,500 to the province and keeping the remaining $52,500 for other local projects.
Long-term plans
Jamie Burke, senior manager of corporate projects, said that the town hasn’t heard anything yet about its application for joint funding of a $4.6 million third phase of the Lorne Street project.
Phase Three could include a 20,000 cubic metre retention pond in the Sackville quarry as well as an additional 40,000 cubic metre pond behind the community garden on Charles Street along with deeper ditches and more piping to carry storm water through the industrial park to the provincially owned aboiteau on the Tantramar River.
The town is hoping that the province would agree to upgrade the aboiteau to allow it to handle the extra water.
Councillor Bill Evans
During Monday’s meeting, Councillor Bill Evans warned once again that Phase Three is needed to handle the increasing likelihood of a one-in-one-hundred year storm.
“The problem with what we’ve done is that we have enough capacity now to deal with the ordinary major weather event that happens once a year,” he said.
“A lot of people would look at it and say, ‘Geez, we had a hurricane and we’re OK, we don’t need to do this,'” he added.
“The decision that was made years ago was to build infrastructure to deal with a weather event that hasn’t happened yet,” Evans said.
He added that instead of using the remaining money to clear ditches and install a pump, perhaps the town should consider spending $500,000 to build a 20,000 cubic metre retention pond in the old quarry even without federal and provincial funding.
He acknowledged that would mean allocating nearly $300,000 from next year’s capital budget to supplement the $210,000 that is still available for Phase Two.
“I’m inclined to create a problem for our treasurer and say, ‘This may be our only opportunity to get this much more [water retention] capacity for this kind of price,'” he said.
To review a detailed timeline of the Lorne Street flood control project, click here.
Hopefully the Councillors are well aware that now, with the completion of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure project to replace the old small wooden aboiteaux located at the Carter’s Brook causeway to Westcock with the three massive six ft diameter concrete and steel aboiteaux, the chances of major Lorne Street fresh water flooding are extremely small.
The watershed area that feeds Carters Brook is almost 50 times that of what the Town’s separate watershed area is that directly drains towards Lorne Street. Simply put, proper maintenance of our previous drainage system and a replacement of existing undersized aboiteaux would have rectified the flooding problem.
If only (our) DTI would commit to their responsibility and follow the Hilcon Report suggestions then we would not have to worry about flooding. It is THEIR dyking aboiteau system and what is needed is a good working relationship with our town management to get undersized and deteriorated aboiteau replaced.
Twice every day, at low tide, any flood waters have the opportunity to fully drain to the Tantramar River if only given the opportunity. There is no need of a diesel powered 6″ pump if only the aboiteau was properly sized. There is no need for holding ponds either if the Town ditches are wide and deep enough to accommodate the accumulation of storm water over these less than 6 hour periods of high tide.
Unbelievably the existing old wooden aboiteau out behind the Public Works Department, that the Town will continue to rely on (as well as the undersized pump), is an extremely small 18 inches square and it is eight feet higher in elevation than it should be for proper drainage ditch slope.