Approving housing developments on floodplain
Province asked to conduct Operational Audit of Mississippi Valley
Conservation Authority
(A copy of
Straight Goods article, published Friday, October 20, 2006)
by Ted Cooper
Ontarians may remember that, after the Walkerton tragedy, there was a
big push to build up local Conservation Authorities
in order to protect the safety of local water supplies. But
Conservation Authorities (CAs) have another responsibility too:
to regulate development in and around flood plains and protect
residents from flooding.
Conservation Authorities are local, science-based, community
organizations that manage natural resources on a watershed
basis across Ontario. Conservation Authorities were created over 55
years ago and are legislated under the Conservation
Authorities Act. CAs are mainly funded by municipal fees and levies,
and governed by individual Boards of Directors
whose members include municipally elected and appointed officials, and
other stakeholders. Almost 90 percent of the
Ontario population (approx 10 million people) lives in watersheds
managed by Conservation Authorities.
Since the devastating floods following Hurricane Hazel in 1954,
Conservation Authorities have developed and
implemented policies on the basis that it is easier to keep people away
from floodwaters, than it is to keep floodwaters
away from people.
In Canada, insurance coverage is not available to the homeowner for
flood damage caused by surface waters. As a result,
following damaging floods, all levels of government are asked to help
bailout impacted residents. For this reason,
government programs have been implemented across the country whereby
flood vulnerable areas have been mapped, and
policies put in place to restrict development in these hazardous areas.
The Canada-Ontario Flood Damage Reduction Program (FDRP) provided
funding for floodplain mapping from 1978 to
1993. Mapping carried out under the FDRP program was funded 50 percent
by the Federal government, 40 percent by the
Provincial government and 10 percent by the local municipality and
Conservation Authority. The program established
Provincial Floodplain Technical Guidelines and federal mapping
specifications that continue to be used today to produce
new floodplain mapping. Funding for the FDRP program was eliminated in
the early 1990s due to budget reductions, at
both the Provincial and Federal levels of government.
In short, Ontarians' protection from flood hazards is overseen by
people who are expected to have a lot of expertise in
water management. And on the whole, CAs have done not too badly. To
most Ontarians, Conservation Authorities are the
guardians of the natural corridors along the province' s thousands of
rivers and creeks.
Nonetheless, Ontario communities continue to be impacted by flooding.
While many of these floods occur in
long-established settlement areas that pre-date the Flood Damage
Reduction Program, there are a surprising number of
flooding incidents occurring in the Nation's Capital in recently built
communities.
A recent investigation of flooding incidents in 1996, 2002, and 2004 in
the former City of Kanata, within the jurisdiction
of the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA), suggests that
the flooding in the communities of Glen Cairn
and North Kanata may have involved more than Acts of God.
Flood damage control long based on premise it is easier to keep people
away from flood dangers than to keep floods away
from people. In the case of the flooding of dozens of homes in Glen
Cairn along the Carp River, a 1983 floodplain
mapping study completed under the FDRP Program recommended additional
investigation be undertaken after it was
determined the community was vulnerable to flooding. The same study
also made specific recommendations to increase
the height of embankments in one area where the Carp River had been
channelized and diverted in the 1970' s, when
housing developments were approved by the MVCA in reclaimed floodplain
areas -- twenty years after Hurricane Hazel.
Yet the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) permitted
developers to build hundreds of hectares of new
housing in the watershed upstream of the area identified in 1983 as
being vulnerable to flooding. It would appear that
whatever action (if any) the MVCA took after the 1983 study was not
enough because in 1996 dozens of houses were
flooded in the exact locations where the 1983 study had warned.
Unfortunately for many of these same residents, nothing
was done about their situation until after a second flood hit them just
six years later in 2002.
In the late 1990's, the City of Kanata, the former Regional
Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and MVCA undertook the
Shirley's Brook and Watts Creek Subwatershed Study. The study was
completed to guide agencies in their consideration of
development applications in North Kanata. Among the study's findings
and recommendations were the following: " No
development and no fill should be located in the 100 year flood plain";
and " to minimize the potential for flooding,
erosion and environmental problems, every attempt should be made to
preserve the existing drainage pattern."
This $350, 000 study was approved in 2000. Subsequently,
inexplicably, the MVCA approved the alteration of the Kizell
Drain, a tributary of Watts Creek, within months of the completion of
the Subwatershed Study, thus disrupting the existing
drainage patterns. The MVCA also approved the filling and development
of floodplain that allowed the construction of the
Marshes Village subdivision in 2002, again contrary to the study's
strong recommendations.
Not surprisingly, on September 9, 2004, dozens of homes and a
nursing home just a few years old were flooded with raw
sewage when the March Pumping Station was swamped by the Kizell Drain
from a construction road built to access the
Marshes Subdivision. Many point the finger at the contractor as the one
responsible for the flood, but upon closer
examination, just like the Walkerton tragedy, it is more the failure of
a regulatory system that placed the public at
unnecessary risk.
Recently, the Ontario Minister of Natural Resources has received a
request for an operational audit of the MVCA, citing
eight examples where the Conservation Authority has applied
questionable floodplain policy.
The latest floodplain development before the MVCA involves plans to
fill and develop 28 Ha of floodplain in the
Greenfield development area known as Kanata West. This unprecedented
modern day development of hundreds of houses
in reclaimed floodplain in Ontario is located along the banks of the
Carp River just downstream of Glen Cairn, the
community that was flooded in 1996 and 2002. On October 18, 2006
Ontario Minister of the Environment Laurel Broten announced the passage
of the Clean Water Act.
In its press release, the Government of Ontario noted " [t]he act will
better protect the quantity and quality of water in
aquifers, rivers and lakes, including the Great Lakes. The legislation
is rooted in the Walkerton Inquiry' s recommendations
that Ontario needs multiple barriers to protect drinking water starting
with the sources. "
Minister Broten stated that, " Every one of us in this province has a
fundamental right to safe, clean drinking water." She
continued, "We listened to Ontarians. We took action based on what we
heard from them. And we developed strong,
effective legislation that responds to local needs and safeguards the
environment and the health of our people."
In November 2004, previous Ontario MOE Minister Leona Dombrowsky,
(now the Minister of Agriculture and Food) and
the Minister of Natural Resources, David Ramsay, jointly announced that
the McGuinty government is providing funding
for source-protection planning for all watersheds in the province. Just
over $10 million was directed to Conservation
Authorities to prepare for this planning effort, and to develop water
budgets that will identify the availability and use of
water, watershed by watershed.
As Conservation Authorities embark on implementation of the Clean Water
Act, perhaps the Province of Ontario should
be checking to see if all Conservation Authorities are up to the task.
Ted Cooper, M. A. Sc., P. Eng. is a water resources engineer working
in Eastern Ontario.
Additional information about the
audit request of the MVCA is available at the links below.
http://www.storm.ca/~river/mvc
http://www.conservation-ontario.on.ca
http://ontario.sierraclub.ca/ottawa/campaign/Currents_of_controversy___Carp_River.htm