City saturated with 'unprecedented' rainfall

Close to 600 mm of rain has saturated the city since August, reporters were told Friday afternoon, leaving the ground sopping wet and unable to deal with the recent heavy rains.

“The sponge is full and water is dripping everywhere,” said Paul Sajatovic, of the Nickel District Conservation Authority. “It's going to take weeks and months to clear this much water.”

And the rains tend to come in bursts, Sajatovic said, with large amounts falling very quickly. As a result, local waterways are struggling to handle the volume of water.

“We've had six months of almost unprecedented rainfall … and most of it has fallen over a relatively short period of time,” he said. “Junction Creek is severely stressed.”

He also stressed the importance of keeping children away from fast-flowing rivers, since the excess water makes riverbanks unstable.

“When you have this much water, especially for a child, it can be a magnet,” he said. “Nobody wants that kind of tragedy.”

Lynn Fortin, the city's emergency response co-ordinator, said departments have been working together to ensure public safety. While there haven't been any emergencies yet, they're prepared just in case.

“We've been monitoring everything very closely so we can get a sense if there is a broader community impact,” she said. “(For example), if there's any residents that are going to be severely impacted, if there's a need for evacuation or anything like that.”

Wendy Mannerow, the city's acting director of water/wastewater services, said heavy rainwater is infiltrating the city's sewer system, overwhelming it in certain areas.

“Imagine that your sump pump is pumping that water into the sanitary sewer – and everyone on your block is doing the same thing,” Mannerow said. “Imagine how much water is (entering) the sewers at the same time … If the pipes get too full, they are going to back up. And that sometimes results in backups into homes.”

To prevent that from happening, the city is operating pumper trucks around the clock that drain excess water in overwhelmed areas of the city.

“We pump the sewage – remember it's diluted by clean rainwater – into the truck and then either drain it back into the system in another location, or into one of our lagoon systems,” she said.

As a last resort, they “release it back into the environment” after quickly treating it, and report the bypass to the Ministry of the Environment.

“It's a decision we sometimes have to make, unfortunately, in these circumstances,” Mannerow said, adding that none of the sewage has been drained into local waterbodies used for drinking water, such as Ramsey Lake or the Vermillion River.

Tony DeSilva, an operations engineer in the roads department, said the public can help ease flooding concerns by letting the city know if there are blocked drainage grates in their neighbourhood.

“We clear as many of them as we can,” DeSilva said. “We're asking the public to let us know about them as much as possible.”

Better still, he said it would make a huge difference if residents would clear the grates in their areas.

“It's a matter of clearing a few leaves from the catch basin grates,” he said. “Not raking the leaves onto the road would help as well.”

And Mannerow emphasized the importance of letting the city know when problems arise.

“It's so important that you call 311 if you have a problem,” she said. “That's the fastest way to get a reaction.”