It rained. Then it rained. Following that, it rained. Then the floods.
“Never seen anything like this in thirty years,” said mechanical contractor Dan Plomish said. “Even the strongest sump pumps were being overwhelmed.”
The deluge left a little more than 6.5 feet of water in the giant, massive, acres-big hole soon to be full of Porsches and Rovers. The underground parking garage of the Parliament Oak hotel contained tens of thousands of gallons — all of it pumped out and into NOTL’s sanitary sewer system, atop the usual 47,000-gallon-per-day flow from the pit.
That pumping may have been illegal. And your basement may have paid the price.
“We hear some people already had trouble flushing their toilets as a result,” residents’ association director Ron Simkus told me. “This water issue is huge. What are the next steps for impacted NOTL households with basements full of sewage?”
So why would a major construction site digging far below the water table be allowed to send its own mighty river into the municipal system? “Because council allowed it,” he adds. “For three years while they build the hotel.”
There’s more to the story. It’s troubling. Digging for the 248-car subterranean garage has included illegal diversion of water into One Mile Creek.
Locals are worried the dig will permanently alter groundwater levels, leading to chronic flooding of homes (and defeated sump pumps). Others argue all the water being collected and flushed away will starve the giant trees that make the hood unique.
Dewatering is a big deal. The NOTL Residents Association met with town officials this week to get some answers. None were forthcoming. It turns out nobody is monitoring the flow.
“This deliberate co-mingling of a massive volume of stormwater into a highly vulnerable sanitary system is deliberate, inconsiderate, destructive to the lives of many NOTL residents,” says Simkus. “Now, during these ‘epic’ rain events recently, sewer backups across Virgil and Old Town and hundreds of residents are being impacted, often for the very first time in history.”
But Parliament Oak is not the only massive new pipe into the sewer system. The Shaw is also part of the Big Flush. Its Royal George site has permission to dump 225,000 litres (or 59,000 gallons) of water into the sanitary sewer every day.
How much water is that? This one site’s flow equates to the daily usage of 330 homes — 62 per cent of all the households in the heritage district.
So it begs the same question: was our town infrastructure built for this? Did the political leaders debate it? Was it disclosed?
“The idea that multiple high-volume discharge permits can be granted simultaneously, if at all, is very disturbing,” says Simkus. “Permits are cheap and fast but transfer substantial risk to someone else — local residents and taxpayers.”
In the same vein, why are there no models of either the 35,000-square-foot hotel or the 51,000-square-foot George complex?
At 62 feet in height, the hotel (capable of holding 1,000 people) will tower over the existing residential hood, while the new theatre soars to six storeys on a street of largely one- or two-level heritage buildings.
Do citizens or their leaders really know what’s coming?
St. Davids resident Leslie Mann has created models of new developments for more than four decades.
“As we all know, a rendering can be manipulated,” he says, “whereas an accurate model tells all. None of the recent controversial projects have presented a model to showcase their designs. I think we know why.”
“If the Shaw group believes their design integrates well with Old Town why not show us?” he continues. “What are they hiding? If the Marotta architect believes their design for Parliament Oak meshes with the existing streetscape, why not produce a concept model covering a few blocks surrounding the site? Let people see.”
Mann says he’s been tempted to make those models, take them to councillors and say, “Look, are you aware this is what they want to build?”
The answer, at this point, seems to be a hard no. Nobody really knows. Except the developers.
The storms helped us face facts. A massive assault on the sewer system should have been disclosed — before the toilets burped, sump pumps were overcome and basements filled.
Similarly, heritage rules we all must obey should have been followed, not cast aside. Nobody on council should have voted for either project without demanding to see how they look. Their impact on our town. Residents and citizens deserve transparency. Better leaders.
The morning after the big storm our lord mayor and his deputy posted a video of concern: “We’re here to help,” they said.
Too late.
Garth Turner is a NOTL resident, journalist, author, wealth manager and former federal MP and minister. garth@garth.ca
