Essex to report on state of CR50 Road, debrief after flash flood

by Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative

Following the flash flood recently experienced in the Harrow and Colchester areas within the Town of Essex on Wednesday, September 24, Mayor Sherry Bondy introduced two Notices of Motion to help look into the matter and potentially find ways to prevent that from happening again in the future.

  Both Notices of Motion were first introduced at the October 6 meeting, and after discussion at the October 20 meeting, were supported by Council.  

  The firsts motion will have administration for the Town of Essex provide a report detailing the state of Municipal Drains bounded by County Road 50, from Erie Road to County Road 41.

  This report will include the number of drains, capacity of drains, and whether or not Council has any ability to implement drainage works without a petition from residents.

  Since the flash flood, Bondy has been talking to local authorities.

  Looking at topographical maps of the Town of Essex, the west-side is incredibly lower than the east-side.

  “I really want to get in there and have more of a microscopic look,” Bondy said.

  Council has delegated its authority to the drainage committee, and therefore does not have a full understanding of the scope of the drainage works in the area.

  “I want to better understand it and see where there are gaps,” she said.

  When it comes to building permits, Bondy’s understanding is that the Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) only looks at water coming up from the lake when looking at building permits.  

  “Nobody is assessing what intense storms do to residential developments,” Bondy said. “What we are having is more and more intense storms; flash flooding and inches and inches of rain in localized areas of our municipality. It seems to hit our municipality harder than some, and we are not looking at what this overland water is doing.”

  She said County Road 50 has been washed out twice because of it.

  Bondy has asked for a meeting with the County with herself, Deputy Mayor Rob Shepley, and Town admin to talk about County Road 50 to determine if development should even take place in the area, if more ditch or drainage work needs to be completed, and the hard conversation regarding if the Town should force drainage works on residents if they don’t want to have the work done.

  “I’m hoping we can get a holistic view of this area of our municipality because it is prone to flooding, formally cottage country,” Bondy explained. “Many homes probably shouldn’t have even been built there, and now we are dealing with the ramifications.”        

  The second motion directed administration to provide a debriefing report on the recent flooding event, which will include updates on actions or initiatives that the Town is doing to help address this flooding.

  It will also have the Town relook at its subsidy program to remove red tape for approvals.

  Bondy has spoken to town staff about removing the requirement of needing two quotes.  

  “I know we are doing a lot of good things in Harrow,” Bondy said, adding sometimes Council and staff could help themselves by talking about the great things being done, such as smoke testing and storm sewer cover installation.

  “We are doing a lot of great things,” she added. The Town just needs to package it up again for residents and see where it needs to go.

  She added the Town did apply for a grant valued at over $1M to upgrade the pump stations at the Harrow Lagoon. That would help support future developments and move sanity along faster for existing developments.

  Since the flood, she has met with members of the community and members of administration.

  The Town is “doing a lot of good things, and I want to debrief on what we have done and talk about what else we can do going forward,” Bondy explained.