Flood victims get cash but no guarantees it won't happen again
August 12, 2006

Over 400 irate victims of sewer back-ups and flooding attended Thursday night's public meeting hosted by ward four councillor Sam Merulla. Their main demand was for a guarantee that their homes would not be flooded again after four severe rainstorms caused so much damage that council has now declared each of them disasters.

On Wednesday, council approved a Municipal Disaster Relief Assistance Program to provide affected residents with up to $750 per flood event. The city expects to provide $1.5 million in grants if all victims apply. People who are currently suing the city are not eligible for the grant but can take legal action after receiving it.

Merulla believes the city should take responsibility for the clean up cost, but officials at the meeting said they are still investigating and are not admitting the city is liable for compensation. Neither staff or politicians were able to promise that changes to the sewer system will prevent a recurrence of the flooding.

Council approved the establishment of an independent community panel last September after the first two storms, but the membership wasn't finalized until late March. It includes experts in storm management, insurance, climatology and wastewater.

Its task is to determine the infrastructure problems and create a plan, presumably fixing highest priority sites first. At Thursday's meeting, officials could only announce one project - the reconstruction of sewers on Edgemont Street scheduled to begin on Monday.

Staff were not able to to provide specifics about any further projects, nor could they give answers about potential health impacts from water or raw sewage in homes. No one from the public health department attended the meeting.

Unusually heavy rains have resulted in sewer backups and basement flooding three times in the last year in older parts of the city, especially the west mountain and lower east end. A fourth storm hit the Waterdown area in late July and dumped a total of 130-150 millimetres of rain in two outbursts 14 hours apart. That storm was three times the size of those that flooded east Hamilton basements, but the property damages were less because much of the rain fell in rural and natural areas.

In undeveloped areas, rainfall is collected and stored in vegetation, the soil column and in surface depressions. In urban areas where vegetation is removed and access to the soil is limited, water flows off rooftops, over pavement and into the storm drains. The combined sewer system in older parts of Hamilton sends this flow down the same pipes as sanitary sewage from homes and can result in sewer back-ups and flooding when this runoff is too much for the capacity of the pipes.

Environment Canada says that global climate change "will likely increase the frequency of very heavy and extreme precipitation events and local flooding."

Flooding and sewer back-ups are not the only problems associated with heavy rains. The city has already seen 1.8 million cubic metres of raw sewage flow into the harbour from combined storm sewers this year.

Mayor Di Ianni and councillors Merulla, Morelli and Whitehead attended the meeting. Staff members in attendance included Gerry Davis from capital planning, Michael Hill of risk management, Scott Stewart from public works and city manager Glen Peace.

Details on the disaster relief fund can be found at http://www.myhamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/E5D48EFC-4AA3-4919-9227-
520B55C6BF16/0/Aug09FCS06007DisasterReliefDraftPolicyd2.pdf.