COBOURG — An east end resident says spokesmen for both the Town of Cobourg and the Ganaraska Conservation Authority were too hasty in saying infrastructure was not to blame for the flooding that hit Cobourg Jan. 25.

In addition to blocked culverts and grates reported by area citizens, infrastructure installed in the Coverdale Avenue area to alleviate flooding in the area including Brook Road South obviously didn’t do the job, Lakeshore Road property owner Johanna ter Woort explained in an interview.

“Why did we make this $2.2-million investment if Brook Road (South in the east end) is still flooding,” she asked.
The town’s acting public works director Ted MacDonald says he is meeting with the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority to “discuss the flood” and then a report will be made to town council.

“Infrastructure is always being installed to reduce flooding,” he said. It is an ongoing process and the “ultimate goal” is to stop it all, MacDonald said.

Three different creeks run southward through Cobourg to Lake Ontario and they are:

• Cobourg or Factory Creek in the west;

• Midtown Creek in the middle; and

• Brook Creek in the east.

Mayor Peter Delanty says council has asked for a staff report following flooding in the town and particularly in the Division and Elgin street area that swamped and stranded cars in the rising waters of the intersection. He said in an interview that a new water retention pond might need to be created as a possible solution.

Last week residents of the George Street area near Cobourg Creek (in the west end of Cobourg) came to council with a petition about damage the flooding caused to their homes and possessions. Some residents had to be rescued by boat as water surrounded their houses on Jan 26.

Unlike the petitioners, ter Woort says she is not taking her complaints to town staff.

“I’ve given up contacting the town about this thing,” she said.

After a series of letters and phone calls two years ago, ter Woort took her concerns about the 2007 installation of a sewer pipe through Look Out Point Park adjacent to her property to the environment ministry. She contended the installation discharges contamination onto the rock shelf at the edge of Lake Ontario at the park and into the lake itself, an area used as a beach by area residents.

The report on the investigation of ter Woort’s complaint about how the town dealt with open ditches, flooding and the sewer discharge was in the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s (ECO) annual report for 2008/9, issued last fall.

It states the ECO was “pleased that MOE (environment ministry) agreed to undertake this application for investigation” from ter Woort.

It was in agreement with the environment ministry that ter Woort’s water samples did “not prove that the quality of the storm water discharge was affected by reconstruction of the storm water sewer” but suggested the ministry should have taken its own samples in wet rather than dry conditions.

The report went on to state that “the ECO is surprised that given the options and recommendations in the MOE’s Stormwater Management Planning and Design Manual, it appears the Town (of Cobourg) did not consider the existence of a known, although not formally recognized, recreational beach and either locate the outfall or extend the sewer pipe farther into the lake.”

It further states that ter Woort’s complaint “illustrates the problems” associated with managing urban storm water runoff.

“While storm water management systems provide necessary functions for urban areas to prevent potential flooding, the collection of animal feces, pesticides, road salts and other contaminants is storm water as it runs over paved surfaces can result in highly polluted discharge.”

The report references a past ECO report’s observation that with the “hardening” of ares due to paving and building and the replacement of open ditches (as was the case in the Coverdale Area of Cobourg) with buried pipes “major changes in runoff intensity and volume occur that can have devastating impacts on downstream watercourses.”