Tonnes of sewage mud removed from Brooklyn Creek, nearby residents say its been piling up for years

Tonnes of sewage mud removed from Brooklyn Creek, nearby residents say its been piling up for years

Town employees armed with dump trucks, vacuum trucks, excavators and other equipment removed stinky silt from Brooklyn Creek on Sept. 3  |  Photos submitted

Tonnes of sewage mud removed from Brooklyn Creek, nearby residents say its been piling up for years

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Following the publication of a Decafnation commentary on Friday about leaking pipes that spilled raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, the Town of Comox has gone on a hurried public relations campaign.

Mayor Russ Arnott has been posting on his Facebook page and doing media interviews this week even though he says he only found out about the leak on Saturday, three weeks after it occurred. And the town took the unusual step of issuing a news release on a Saturday, a day after the original Decafnation article appeared.

The PR campaign has minimized the seriousness of raw sewage leaking into the creek for an undetermined length of time and downplayed any ill effects the leak might have had on fish or dogs and other animals that drink from the water or children who play in the creek.

The town’s news release dated Saturday, Sept. 25 characterized the problem as “a small sanitary leak” that it “discovered” on Friday, Sept. 3, and assured citizens that the matter was remedied that same afternoon by removing tons of “contaminated water and soil from the creek.”

A test of the creek’s water quality after the remediation measures showed no public health concerns, according to Chief Administrative Officer Jordan Wall.

While the town says it found the source of the sewage leak on Sept. 3, it has not said how long the failed sewer and stormwater pipes had been leaking. Nor have they stated the length of time between when town employees first noticed diminished water quality and when they located the source of the problem.

But thanks to multiple Decafnation readers, we have learned that raw sewage may have been leaking into Brooklyn Creek for a long time, possibly years.

That would explain high levels of dissolved oxygen in the creek, unusual plant growth near Noel Avenue, dead smolt fish found on the creek’s bank and a definite sewage odour noticed by at least one person who walks the Brooklyn trails regularly.

Photo of the Brooklyn Creek bed just below the Noel Avenue culverts taken last summer.

 

PIECING TOGETHER WHAT HAPPENED

According to the town’s news release the sewer breach occurred near the Hillside Avenue-Highland Road intersection where stormwater and sewage manholes are located side by side. The town says concrete at the bottom of the sewage manhole eroded and flowed into a crack in a stormwater pipe one meter away

“These types of issues are increasingly common in these systems due to the age of some of the infrastructure,” Wall told Decafnation. He says the town plans to invest “heavily” in replacement and repair over the next several years.

Based on that explanation, the affected stormwater pipe would have to have discharged its polluted water into the creek somewhere upstream from the new culverts lower down on Noel Avenue. That’s because, as the town says, its response to discovering the leak included removing “contaminated soil” from the creek at the location of the new Noel Avenue culverts.

Neither Wall nor the town’s news release has said clearly that the removed soil was infused with the leaking raw sewage, but residents who live close to those culverts have told Decafnation that the smell of sewage was “overwhelming” as they watched town crews dig out tons of “contaminated soil.”

Asked if the septic smell had been strong, Brook Place Strata President Dennis Strand said, “Strong? That isn’t the word for it.”

And other residents of Brook Place, a 36-unit condominium building that borders the creek say that over the past two years they have observed unusual growth of plant life and silt buildup at the site of the culverts, and a definitive smell of sewage.

Carol Neufeld, a Brook Place resident who walks the creek trails every day, told Decafnation that she has noticed a septic smell along the creek for more than a year.

Strand says he and other nearby residents suspect that sewage may have been leaking into the creek at least since the Noel Avenue road work was conducted two years ago. But it’s also possible that sewage has been leaking into the creek for even longer and conceivably from multiple sources.

Strand says he was told by an environmental professional working at the site that there have been reports of toilet paper and lumps of human excrement floating in the creek.

Recent photo of the same section of Brooklyn Creek bed after remediation following the discovery of a sewage leak for an undetermined period of time | George Le Masurier photo

 

 

ROLE OF THE NOEL AVENUE CULVERTS

But in a written response to the Brook Place concerns, Strand says Mayor Russ Arnott denied any problems of capacity or silt buildup with the culverts.

In the mayor’s letter dated Aug. 20, Arnott said the culverts were “working as expected.”

But just a week later, at 1 pm on Sept. 3, at the start of the long holiday weekend, “an army of people and equipment descended on us, full force,” Strand told Decafnation.

Strand and other residents watched as approximately 15 employees with two dump trucks, excavators, two vacuum trucks, backhoes and other heavy equipment spent more than six hours removing 15 truckloads of contaminated, stinky silt and plants from the culvert location. The crews came back over the weekend for another few hours.

The vacuum trucks were used to reach places the excavators could not.

Regular tandem-axle dump trucks can carry 12.5 tonnes and a vacuum truck holds about 12 tonnes. Fifteen loads (11 dump truck and four vacuum truckloads) would equal approximately 180 tonnes or nearly 396,000 pounds of sewage-infused silt.

But town CAO Wall disputes those estimations. He told Decafnation the town only removed 38 cubic meters of material or about 57 tonnes, equivalent to a little more than four truckloads, and that most of it was gravel.

Strand says that’s “just not true and the photographs we have prove it.”

He says other people who watched the six-hour operation counted 15 loads — 11 by dump trucks and two each by the two vacuum trucks.

“If they only took out 57 tonnes, why did they have two dump trucks and two vacuum trucks onsite,” he said.

Strand, a former two-term Comox Council member and Comox Valley Regional District director, also disputes the town’s claim in its Saturday press release that they discovered a sewage leak, found its location and fixed it, and then coordinated with federal and provincial agencies and mobilized a large contingent of employees and equipment all in the morning of a single day.

The reparation work at the culvert site began at 1 pm.

“They had to have known sooner. I know governments can’t do all of that in a half-day,” he said. “They didn’t come and remove the silt because of our complaints. The mayor had just said a week earlier that there wasn’t a problem there. So they came Friday (Sept. 3) afternoon because of the sewage leak.”

What really angers Brook Place residents, Strand said, is the fact that the town had for a long time failed to even acknowledge their complaints about a problem that could have affected the condo building.

“But all of a sudden they arrive in full force. Working overtime on a holiday weekend. As I said, they weren’t here for us,” Stand says.

Strand is particularly upset with how the council has handled the issue.

“Nobody is taking ownership for not doing it right (the culvert design) in the first place. They didn’t account for the periods of low flow in the creek,” he said.

“It’s total disrespect to me and our strata owners.”

The stormwater (left) and sewage manholes at the intersection of Hillside Avenue and Highland Road

 

TURBIDITY FROM NEW GRAVEL

The turbidity observed in the creek recently is linked but not directly related to the sewage discharge.

Following the clean-up of contaminated silt and vegetation below the new Noel Avenue culverts, well-intentioned streamkeepers laid down new gravel as part of the reparation measures for potential spawning fish. Some of the gravel was reportedly unwashed, meaning it wasn’t clean of sediment. A subsequent flush of rainwater sent the silt (turbidity) downstream.

Sources told Decafnation that the turbidity was temporary and not likely to have any long-term effect on the creek’s water quality.

 

OTHER POLLUTED COMOX CREEKS

Brooklyn Creek isn’t the only waterway within the Town of Comox that has been affected by high pollution levels.

The last measurement made by a homeowner of E. Coli in Golf Creek, which runs through downtown Comox (mostly channeled underground) was taken on Aug. 7, 2021 and showed 11,000 coliform units per 100 ml. The single sample threshold for closing a public beach is 400 cfu/100 ml.

That means the E. Coli measured in Golf Creek may be nearly 30 times the government guideline considered safe for human contact. On Aug. 19, 2020 E. Coli was measured at 16000 cfu/100 ml, or 40 times the safe limit.

There is a BC Supreme Court lawsuit pending over water quality in Golf Creek.

All of Comox Bay is under an ongoing shellfish harvesting ban.

 

COUNCIL KEPT IN THE DARK?

The news release also revealed that the mayor and Town Council had not been made aware of the issue until that day, which was 22 days after the leak was discovered and remediation action was taken. Mayor Arnott confirmed that delay in an email to a concerned citizen.

“Myself and council were briefed on this today,” Arnott wrote on Sept. 25 to a Decafnation reader.

Decafnation asked Mayor Arnott Tuesday morning via email whether he was concerned about this lack of communication, and whether the council might pursue disciplinary action.

“The issue is being dealt with internally,” he said.

This article has been updated to correct tonnage from imperial tons to metric tonnes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMOX TOWN COUNCIL

 

Russ Arnott, Mayor
rarnott@comox.ca

 

Alex Bissinger
abissinger@comox.ca

 

Nicole Minions
nminions@comox.ca

 

Ken Grant
kgrant@comox.ca

 

Maureen Swift
mswift@comox.ca

 

Stephanie McGowan
smcgowan@comox.ca

 

 

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Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

Turbidity in Brooklyn Creek, with stormwater pipe creating a “waterfall” in the background. Kids sometimes play under this  |  Photos submitted by a Como resident

Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

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Five months ago, I decided to take a break from publishing stories on Decafnation. It was a difficult decision because I enjoy journalism and there is such a dearth of enterprise reporting in the Comox Valley.

Several news events during this past half-year have tempted me to revive my regular reporting and commentary: Daniel Arbour’s bold and forward-thinking proposal about a future with fewer fossil fuel-powered vehicles and the recent federal election come to mind.

But today I stumbled onto a story that I couldn’t resist because it involves the ongoing degradation of local waterways by a municipality and a cadre of council members who chose to hide pertinent information from their constituents.

The story involves a major pollution event with potential public health concerns in the Town of Comox about which the public has not been informed.

One of the town’s sewage pipes recently broke and an unknown volume of raw sewage spilled into Brooklyn Creek, which flows through  Mack Laing Park and empties into the Comox Harbour. That created a health hazard for any children playing in the creek and at the creek’s Comox Bay estuary, and a potential lingering toxic environment for any returning fish this fall.

It also contributes to the contamination of shellfish in Comox Bay, which is under an ongoing harvesting ban.

None of the council members or town staff have discussed this sewage spill publicly or informed town residents. We couldn’t find any notice on the town’s website. And, of course, you won’t have read about it in any of the local media.

Decafnation reached out late afternoon Friday to Town Engineer Shelley Ashfield via email, who has not yet responded. We will update this story when and if Ashfield responds to our questions.

We asked Ashfield when and where the sewage break occurred and how the raw sewage could have flowed into Brooklyn Creek.

And it gets worse. On Thursday, the creek turned a milky brown color from somewhere south of Guthrie Road and covered the length of the creek to Comox Harbour. It appears, though this is not yet confirmed, that during mitigation measures following the raw sewage spill, the town dumped loads of gravel into the creek, stirring up sediment at the creek’s bottom and creating turbidity that took a long time to clear.

This also poses potential problems for wildlife.

We learned from a Comox resident that Kira Gallant of Environment Canada has an open file on issues regarding Brooklyn Creek and the Town of Comox. And that Dave Pridham, an officer with the BC Environment Ministry, is investigating both the raw sewage spill and the turbidity issue.

Decafnation has also learned that Brooklyn Creek Streamkeepers discovered dozens of dead salmon smolts along the waterway’s banks this summer. That could be linked to the fact the town discharges multiple stormwater drainage pipes into the creek, which diminishes its water quality, and also as a result of this summer’s heat domes created by climate change.

Suspected poor water quality in the creek has nearly wiped out healthy fish spawns in the creek in recent times. The creek’s headwaters begin in Courtenay, primarily Crown Isle, and pass through Area B en route to Comox, which creates a three-jurisdiction regulatory process. None of the three levels of government monitor the creek’s water quality.

The recent incident reinforces long-time concerns about the Town of Comox’s stormwater management practices. Decafnation published an intensive series of stories on this and related issues two years ago.

The town had ample warning that such a disaster could occur. But the town has ignored recommendations from multiple engineering consultants dating back more than two decades to upgrade its stormwater practices, including the building of detention ponds to filter toxic runoff before it enters sensitive waterways and regular collection of water quality data.

There is a pending BC Supreme Court case about the town’s handling of stormwater scheduled to begin next spring.

But Comox residents might question their elected council members why they didn’t inform the public about the raw sewage spill into the creek? Did they even know about the spill? If not, then who is providing oversight of town operations?

Some people believe the Town Council of Comox is the least transparent of all Comox Valley municipalities. You might think that council members heading into municipal elections in 2022 would be trying to change this perception.

This story has been updated to correct an error that Brooklyn Creek travels through Macdonald Wood Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMOX TOWN COUNCIL

Russ Arnott, Mayor: rarnott@comox.ca

Alex Bissinger: abissinger@comox.ca

Nicole Minions: nminions@comox.ca

Ken Grant: kgrant@comox.ca

Maureen Swift: mswift@comox.ca

Stephanie McGowan: smcgowan@comox.ca

 

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Stormwater systems shift slowly toward green infrastructure

Stormwater management plans in the Comox Valley have historically treated rainwater as waste, something to be collected and disposed of quickly, usually into previously clean streams or directly into the ocean. Clearly a new approach is needed.

Golf Creek: A case study in stormwater planning gone wrong

The second in a series about stormwater begins the Tale of Three Creeks: Golf, Brooklyn and Morrison. Golf Creek is dead, Brooklyn Creek is threatened and Morrison Creek is thriving, with an effort to protect its pristine and intact headwaters

Has engineered stormwater doomed BC’s waterways?

Has engineered stormwater doomed BC’s waterways?

Courtenay Councillor Wendy Morin (left) and Comox Councillor Stephanie McGowan listen to Tim Ennis speak about Kus Kus Sum / George Le Masurier photo

Has engineered stormwater doomed BC’s waterways?

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As population growth continues unrestrained and subsequent urban development expands the dimension of impervious surfaces, an increasing volume of polluted stormwater runoff will poison British Columbia’s waters, local species and natural ecosystems.

It sounds like a doomsday prediction, and according to the keynote speaker at a recent provincial conference on water stewardship it’s going to take a major change in local government thinking to avert this disaster.

Bill Derry, one of the Pacific Northwest’s best known experts on stormwater management, delivered this keynote message recently to an audience of more than 200 British Columbia streamkeepers, local government engineers and elected officials and others. Derry spoke April 3 at the second Vancouver Island Symposium on water stewardship organized by The Partnership for Water Sustainability in B.C.

“Put the forest back”

Before any development occurred in B.C., soils and natural vegetation in forests soaked up rainwater, filtered it and slowly released it into streams that flow into larger bodies of water. But in cities, where nature has been covered with impermeable surfaces, rainwater flows along streets where it picks up toxic chemicals and carries them unfiltered into water systems through gutters and underground pipes.

To protect or restore water quality in developed areas is a complicated problem, but Derry said the solution is quite simple: “Put the forest back.”

That’s impossible, of course, yet alternatives do exist.

Fifty years ago, Scottish landscape architect Ian McHarg proposed using natural systems in urban planning. His 1969 book Design With Nature was a guide toward what we call green infrastructure today; the use of rain gardens and infiltration galleries.

Getting local government engineers to implement green infrastructure that protects or restores water quality in developed areas will take massive and relentless public pressure on local governments.

“Tweaking current systems and practices isn’t enough,” he said. “Major change is required, and governments can’t do it. They won’t do it unless we push them.”

Derry said government engineers and elected officials are reluctant to shift from managing stormwater with curbs and gutters toward source control — managing rain where it falls — out of fear of lawsuits and insurance liabilities.

And local governments don’t believe people will maintain rain gardens or other green infrastructure on their properties, he said.

“So we have to challenge old ideas at chamber forums and talk to decision-makers,” he said. “Change will only and always comes when motivated people talk to other people.”

Derry was one of several speakers at the conference who spoke of the benefits of designing municipal systems that attempt to mimic nature. Others spoke of studies that show green spaces and urban streams improve people’s mental health, and are aesthetically pleasing.

Jody Watson, supervisor of environmental planning and initiatives for the Capital Regional District, echoed Derry’s message that public pressure can effect change. Watson is also the past chair of the Bowker Creek Initiative, a successful restoration of a major waterway running through three municipalities in the Victoria area.

Because local governments had given up on Bowker Creek, more and more of it was being buried and channelized.

But widespread community pressure raised the creek to the regional district’s No. 3 priority. Consultants had to convince local engineers of the value of restoring and daylighting the creek. Some staff engineers had rigidly opposed daylighting the creek.

“Sometimes you have to just wait for somebody to retire,” Watson said.

Derry urged conference attendees to champion better stormwater practices on several fronts.

— No expansion of urban growth boundaries. Increase urban density and “save the best of the rest,” he said.

— Require government agencies to preserve forests, not just slow down development. “There should be no net loss of forest cover,” he said.

— Ban toxins such as zinc on vehicle tires, copper on brakes, phosphorous and the micro-plastics from single-use bags and water bottles at the local, provincial and federal level.

Deery cautioned his audience not to expect instant results.

“This isn’t something that will happen overnight,” he said. “But we need to amp up the seriousness of the discussions.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMOX LAKE, CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIPS AND BROOKLYN CREEK

Comox Valley Regional District Senior Engineer Marc Rutten spoke to the conference about the Comox Lake Watershed Protection Plan. It’s a wide-ranging effort that involves multiple landowners and will address issues of turbidity and hydrological changes from logging activities. The watershed is the only source of drinking water for 50,000 residents.

Tim Ennis, the executive director of the Comox Valley Land Trust, spoke about the Comox Valley Conservation Partnership, one of six such groups in the province. The partnership has a unique focus on local government, and speaks with one voice on conservation issues, growth and urban forest strategies. Ennis also talked about the Kus-Kus-Sum project, which he said is more about reconciliation than restoration. “Ten acres of steel and concrete is a daunting” restoration project. But he called the recovery of the K’omoks Estuary a “fantastic model for success.”

Al Fraser and Marvin Kamenz of the Town of Comox, and Christine Hodgson of the Brooklyn Creek Watershed Society, spoke about the relationship between the town and the streamkeepers. Hodgson said over the last 13 years, the streamkeepers have raised about $300,000 ($100,000 in-kind) for in-stream work to improve fish habitat. The town has roughly matched the group’s fundraising. The streamkeepers also do annual smolt counts and public education for neighboring residents.

 

 

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Sponging up the rain, taxing impervious surfaces — what other communities are doing

Sponging up the rain, taxing impervious surfaces — what other communities are doing

Sponging up the rain, taxing impervious surfaces — what other communities are doing

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This is the sixth in a series of articles about how urban stormwater runoff has negatively impacted Comox Valley waterways, what local governments are doing to address the issues and what other communities have done.

 

Urban development in the Comox Valley has fundamentally altered the natural water balance. As impervious surfaces like roads, parking lots and buildings replaced vegetated land, the opportunity for rain water to soak into the ground or return to the atmosphere by evapotranspiration diminished.

To prevent flooding, Valley municipalities have relied on expensive engineered infrastructure, such as curb, getters and stormwater pipes, to divert rainwater into area creeks and streams, and sometimes directly into the K’omoks Estuary.

Along the way, that rain water has picked up oil, grease and engine coolants, copper from vehicle brakes, zinc from vehicle tires, animal feces and a variety of other contaminants that in some cases have killed all aquatic life in our waters and threatened public health.

Polluted stormwater regularly causes the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ban shellfish harvesting in Baynes Sound (as it did in November), and for the Capital Regional District to declare waters at certain Victoria-area beaches a possible health risk (as it did on Dec. 29).

Municipalities around the world have moved toward systems that rely less on “grey” infrastructure and more on “green “infrastructure that attempts to mimic nature.

It also costs less. Curb, gutters and pipes create long-term, unfunded liabilities for taxpayers to repair and replace. The Comox Valley alone has hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded infrastructure liabilities.

So, every community is looking for innovative stormwater solutions. Here are some of them.

Victoria

The City of Victoria introduced a stormwater utility in 2016 to accomplish two goals: one, to fund its ongoing expense of replacing and repairing stormwater pipes; and, two, to encourage property owners to manage their own rainwater where it falls.

Before 2016, Victoria included stormwater fees in property taxes and based the charge on a property’s assessed value. Now, property owners pay fees based on the amount of rainwater estimated to run off their property.

In other words, the more impervious surfaces that cover a property and the fewer source control measures implemented — rain gardens, pervious pavers, etc. — the more a homeowner will pay.

“The stormwater utility is a funding model similar to how we fund water and sanitary services,” Brianne Czypyha, the city’s stormwater management specialist, told Decafnation. “The city uses the stormwater utility because it’s a more equitable user-pay system that bases the fees on the impact a property has on the system.”

Czypyha said grey infrastructure will always be an integral part of managing runoff in the city, but integrating green infrastructure will help build capacity of the system and improve the quality of stormwater runoff discharged into the environment. Using source controls is voluntary, for now, but not using them will cost property owners more.

“While the direction we have chosen is to use incentives to encourage the use of green infrastructure, particularly for retrofitting existing buildings,” Czypyha said. “I definitely see value in requiring new developments to meet more stringent rainwater management requirements.”

Richmond, BC, also has a stormwater utility, and it’s a common practice throughout Washington, Oregon and California.


“We’re aware of the problem, so why would we wait for someone else to tell us to fix it?”


 

Capital Regional District

The municipalities of Saanich, Victoria and Oak Bay have signed on to a multi-jurisdictional, multi-stakeholder 100-year watershed management plan for Bowker Creek. The plan identifies places to daylight and naturalize the creek.

“The plan is to move Bowker Creek back to a more natural stream, as opportunities arise,” Glenn Harris told Decafnation. Harris is the CRD’s senior manager for environmental protection and the Bowker Creek Initiative spokesperson.

Bird life and bio-diversity around the creek is already coming back, Harris said, especially around Oak Bay High School where a $750,000 grant restored and naturalized the creek, increased native plantings and created a creek-focused curriculum at the school.

“It provides an opportunity to restore islands of nature within the urban environment,” he said.

 

Elsewhere in Canada

Kitchener, Ontario has taken a direct action approach to stormwater management. For more than a year, the city has required all new development to capture the first 12.5 millimetres of rain — about a half-inch — every time it rains.

The rule applies to subdivisions, commercial buildings and even city-owned roads. It means that except for major storm events, all rain water must be managed onsite, and no water would reach stormwater pipes or ponds.

Kitchener took the action ahead of anticipated new provincial stormwater regulations based on its own climate change study that predicted a 20 percent increase in rainfall.

“We’re aware of the problem, so why would we wait for someone else to tell us to fix it?,” the city’s stormwater manager Nick Gollan told a Kitchener newspaper. “We should be putting strategies in place to adapt to the changes that are taking place.”

The City of Langley has created a Department of Green Infrastructure Services. It has standardized rain gardens instead of traditional curbs and gutters on all non-arterial roads.

Since 2009, the City of Toronto has required green roofs on all commercial, institutional and residential developments with a minimum floor area of 2,000 square metres (appx. 21,500 square feet), this includes any additions to buildings that increase the floor area to the minium.

 

Outside of Canada

Portland, Oregon has been the acknowledged leader of stormwater management regulations for more than two decades. It started in 1993 with a downspout disconnection program.

But since 1999, Portland’s Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan has required source control on any new redeveloped properties that add more than 500 square feet of impervious surface. That means property owners must manage and treat all the runoff from impervious surfaces with green infrastructure — rain gardens, green roofs, soaker trenches, drywell, pervious pavers, etc. — and in some cases may be required to install underground treatment devices to remove pollutants.

Now, other cities are catching up.

The City of Philadelphia is in the seventh year of a 25-year project to “detain it (rainwater), not convey it.” The city has committed $2.4 billion to recreate in the urban streetscape the kinds of pervious places where, instead of running into surrounding waterways, rainfall and the contaminants it carries can once again soak into and be cleaned by the earth.

Berlin, Germany adopted a Sponge City Strategy in 2017 to mitigate both heat and flooding problems expected to intensify with climate change. The goal is to increase the amount of surfaces within the city that allow water to soak into the ground and release it gradually, rather than a sudden rush into waterways, and more urban vegetation that cools the air through evaporation.

The manager of Berlin’s project says, “The key is to avoid sealing up too much of the ground surface with concrete or tarmac. Wherever possible, we want water-permeable surfaces.”

Berlin’s strategy borrows the term “sponge city” from a 2013 Chinese initiative that proclaimed urban areas should act like sponges, based on the work of landscape architect Kongjian Yu.

Yu’s motto for rainwater management is: retain, adapt, slow down and reuse. Others have since modified that slogan as: sink it, slow it, reuse it and move it.

 

Educational opportunities

The best educators have long-ago incorporated curriculum about the environment and, more recently, about climate change.

More than 30 years ago, Barry Thornton, the former principal of Brooklyn Elementary School in Comox, was a pioneer in teaching young students about conservation and the environment in general. Thornton was a advocate for the restoration of Brooklyn Creek and initiated several fish habitat improvement projects near the school.

B.C. Adventure photo

He was also a co-founder of the schools Salmonids in the Classroom program that acquainted children with the life cycle of salmon and other aquatic life.

Today, students from elementary schools to high schools all over the globe are learning about the hydrological cycle, water balance and the need for better solutions to stormwater management. A quick search of the Internet brings up stormwater education programs from Kentucky to Rhode Island to Mississauga, Ontario.

The City of Mississauga has a stormwater outreach team that does presentations in K-12 classrooms that covers topics such as municipal stormwater management, water conservation, low-impact development and water quality and environmental health.

Students at Arcata High School in Humboldt County, Calif., recently started a project to create rain gardens around campus parking lots after an Environmental Science class found a high level of pollutants in the nearby Jolly Giant Creek.

In Kingston, Ontario, the city’s Fish and Frogs Forever program talks with local students about how polluted stormwater impacts local aquatic ecosystems and what they can do to reverse the negative effects.

 

What is the future?

Environmentalists and conservationists want improved stormwater regulations to happen quickly. But Brianne Cyzypyha, stormwater specialist at the City of Victoria, says that change in stormwater management is a multi-year, complex process, requiring involvement from many internal departments, and also feedback from experts and the public.

“In terms of the way forward, I see most municipalities as similar to a large ship changing course. It can be a bit of a slow process making changes to the old ways of doing business,” she said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

RELATED ARTICLES OF INTEREST

What to know more about the Sponge City concept?

This article describes modern stormwater management tools: sink it, slow it, reuse it and move it.

This article describes landscape architect Kongjian Yu who coined the term “sponge cities.”

This link takes you to Philadelphia’s guide for retrofitting properties to the city’s new stormwater regulations.

 

 

GLOSSARY OF STORMWATER TERMS

Bioswales — A stormwater conveyance system similar, but larger than a rain garden (see below).

Evaporation — As water is heated by the sun, surface molecules become sufficiently energized to break free of the attractive force binding them together, and then evaporate and rise as invisible vapour in the atmosphere.

Green infrastructure — Any natural or built system that provides ecological benefits and help to maintain pre-development hydrology. It encompasses natural features like streams, wetlands, forests and parks, as well as engineered systems that manage urban runoff.

Groundwater — Subterranean water is held in crack and pore spaces. Depending on the geology, the groundwater can flow to support streams. It can also be tapped by wells. Some groundwater is very old and may have been there for thousands of years.

Hydrologic cycle — The endless circulation of water. From the beginning of time when water first appeared, it has been constant in quantity and continuously in motions. The same water molecules have been transferred time and time again from the oceans and the land into the atmosphere by evaporation, dropped on the land as precipitation and transferred back to the sea by rivers and ground water.

Low-impact development (LID) — The systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes that result in the infiltration, evapotranspiration or use of stormwater in order to protect water quality and associated aquatic habitat.

Rain garden — A miniature wetland in a residential setting, lower than the adjacent grade to collect rainwater from roofs, driveways or streets, thus allowing infiltration into the ground.

Runoff — Excessive rain or snowmelt can produce overland flow to creeks and ditches. Runoff is visible flow of water in rivers, creeks and lakes as the water stored in the basin drains out.

Transpiration — Water vapour is also emitted from plant leaves by a process called transpiration. Ever day an actively growing plant transpires five to 10 times as much water as it can hold at once.

 

 

 

 

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Stormwater systems shift slowly toward green infrastructure

Stormwater systems shift slowly toward green infrastructure

Director of Engineering Services Ryan O’Grady at Courtenay City Hall   |  Photo by George Le Masurier

Stormwater systems shift slowly toward green infrastructure

By

This is the fourth in a series exploring the adverse effects on our waterways from how municipalities have traditionally managed stormwater runoff, and the slow shift to mimic natural through green infrastructure. This week we look at how Comox Valley municipalities are addressing the issues. Next week: what other communities are doing.

 

Stormwater management plans in the Comox Valley have historically treated rainwater as waste, something to be collected and disposed of quickly, usually into previously clean streams or directly into the ocean.

Our local governments have commonly relied on hard engineering solutions that employ expensive infrastructure, such as storm drains, catch basins, pipes and ponds.

That approach has removed and altered the source of groundwater that used to recharge our aquifers. And it has left us with polluted streams incapable of supporting aquatic life, shellfish harvesting bans, eroded private and public property, the loss of attractive natural environments and a long-term financial burden we cannot afford.

Shellfish bans to all of the K’omoks Estuary

Comox Valley governments already have more than roughly $400 million in unfunded infrastructure liabilities (even more if the calculation was based on replacement cost), and stormwater systems account for a significant portion of that staggering total. The Town of Comox alone had $160 million in 2012.

And each new regional housing development ultimately adds more to the total because builders pay development cost charges that cover only the costs of installing infrastructure. They pay nothing for ongoing repairs, maintenance and replacment. Taxpayers are saddled with that burden, forever.

Clearly, a new approach is needed.

Forward-thinking municipalities have shifted toward source control, managing rain where it falls through infiltration, evapotranspiration and rainwater harvesting, techniques known as green infrastructure. This improves water quality, reduces flooding and erosion and costs taxpayers less.

To fund this fundamental transformation in stormwater systems, some municipalities have introduced new fees based on the percentage of impervious surfaces on a property, along with corresponding financial incentives to install green infrastructure.

So, given the benefits and cost savings of going green, are Comox Valley municipalities and other local governments rushing to implement green infrastructure? Not exactly.

A 2017 study conducted by the Canadian Freshwater Alliance and Green Communities Canada, which included data from the Comox Valley, found that most municipalities were moving slowly.

“Most communities surveyed are not far advanced in adapting urban landscapes to manage rain where it falls,” according to a Green Communities summary of the study. “Communities appear to be making moderate commitments … in community plans.”

So, what exactly are Comox Valley municipalities doing?

City of Courtenay

Ryan O’Grady, the city’s director of engineering services, will lead the development of an Integrated Stormwater Management Plan (ISMP) in 2019. The plan will encompass strategies for flood mitigation in the downtown core, how to replace traditional engineered infrastructure with green solutions and will, he says, look through a broad lens at regional solutions.

“The ISMP will have an educational component, too, about stormwater systems,” O’Grady told Decafnation. “These will be challenging conversations, but there is a collective desire to change.”

Water and sewer issues have gotten most of every municipalities’ attention up until now, he said. Stormwater is one of the last service areas to focus on.

Rain gardens on Courtenay’s new ‘complete’ Fifth Street

“Our city has prioritized stormwater lower in the past to deal with drinking water,” O’Grady said. “All staff are looking forward to working on stormwater.”

The city has also shifted its approach to management of assets from reactive to proactive, a move he said came from Chief Administrative Officer David Allen (see separate story).

For example, the city is currently doing a culvert assessment where streams pass under roadways to see they are working properly. Good working culverts are important for fish passage. And the recently renovated upper portion of Fifth Street was designed with rain gardens to test how well they work and the ongoing cost to maintain them.

“We’re learning how to integrate green infrastructure and low-impact development going forward,” he said.

O’Grady intends for the stormwater plan to take a regional view, including discussions about Brooklyn Creek, which originates in Courtenay, flows through regional Area B and empties into Comox Bay.

“There’s a collective desire to collaborate … it would be great to work together,” he said.

The stormwater management plan project is part of a national pilot project to improve Courtenay’s resilience to climate change. The city is one of 72 across Canada chosen to participate.

O’Grady told Decafnation he has already begun contacting representatives from the development community, regional technical staff, stakeholders, elected officials, regulatory agencies, creek and stream stewardship groups and the K’omoks First Nations. The planning will get underway in early 2019.

The city has set aside $110,000 to develop the plan, and will get additional funding assistance from the Municipal Natural Asset Initiative (MNAI), a collective that supports municipalities to better understand, value and manage its natural assets onan equivalent basis with its other infrastructure.

“I look forward to facilitating that conversation with the bigger group,” he said.

Town of Comox

Comox does not have a town-wide stormwater management plan, but has created detailed plans for specific developments, such as the North East neighbourhood..

On paper, the North East neighbourhood stormwater management plan looks to be the most progressive for a subdivision in the Comox Valley.

However, the green infrastructure recommended in a plan commissioned by the area’s land owners and developers from McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd., has not been adopted by the town into bylaws that fund and manage their long-term operation.

So, it is unknown at this point whether these green infrastructure policies will actually be implemented, or enforced.

Town of Comox Municipal Engineer Shelley Ashfield refused to meet with Decafnation to discuss the town’s plans. Instead she answered some email questions and referred us to links on the town’s website.

Vegetated property cleared for condos near the Comox Golf Club. Town says no source control on rainwater will apply

If fully enacted, the McElhanney report recommends a variety of source control measures for eventual North East homeowners. These include rainwater harvesting, disconnecting downspouts from stormwater pipes, rock pits (infiltration pits), green roofs, amended soil for rain gardens and permeable pavement for driveways.

The report also recommends the town require narrow streets for less impervious surface, town-owned rain gardens in roundabouts and boulevards, and infiltration galleries.

McElhanney expressed concern in its report about the possibility that homeowners and the town would not maintain or protect the green infrastructure features, which could result in their failure and cause flooding and other problems.

“Given the potential difficulties in enforcing the ongoing maintenance and upkeep … it has been decided that the water balance benefit derived from the use of these features ought to be significantly discounted, to ensure the long-term performance of the overall stormwater management system,” the report says.

To hedge against that possibility, the report suggests, “It may be prudent to approach the shift to greater reliance on Low Impact Development tentatively, by designing a few subdivisions on the basis of redundant capacity, and then monitoring for compliance with clearly worded and well-publicized operation and maintenance regulations.”

It appears the neighbourhood will get traditional stormwater conveyance in addition to requirements for green infrastructure

The engineers are recommending the creation of series of dry detention ponds connected by infiltration trenches that all ultimately flow into the Queens Ditch, which is a low-sloped ditch leading to the Strait of Georgia at the Point Holmes boat ramp.

And they recommend copious informational signs reminding homeowners of their responsibilities for managing rainwater on their property and not to damage town-owned green infrastructure.

Ashfield said the town is currently updating its Subdivision and Development Services Bylaw and she hopes to have it finalized by next spring. But she would not say whether all or some of the North East Comox stormwater recommendations would be included in the town-wide bylaw.

Asked via email whether the town asked for green infrastructure features in the redevelopment of the Comox mall, or in the development of new multi-family projects at the Comox Golf Course or on Anderton Road, Ashfield said it did not.

“These sites are per the town’s current Official Community Plan and as such are currently modeled with the town’s 2013 storm study,” Ashfield wrote.

She also said bioswales or other infiltration features were considered for the recent Robb Road renovation, but were rejected because of the installation and maintenance cost premium and soil condition.

Ashfield said the town would be an active participant in the Courtenay Integrated Stormwater Management Plan process.

“Anything upstream of the town drains into Brooklyn Creek and so is very important that all jurisdictions within any watershed work together …” she said.

Village of Cumberland

The majority of Cumberland’s rainwater is collected and is either combined with the sanitary sewer system or, where it is separated, directed to one of three wetland areas around the village.

Manager of Operations Rob Crisfield said the village does have some storm drainage systems where rainwater is collected into a bioswale and soaks away into the ground.

One of several rain gardens in the boulevards entering the Village of Cumberland

“This method is used in the new ditches that were established on Cumberland and Bedan roads as part of a (renovation) project in 2016-2017,” he told Decafnation. “Of course, this doesn’t always work, depending on soil conditions.”

The village also requires ground recharge infiltration methods in appropriate subdivisions to allow water to soak back into the ground without runoff. And it is looking at a man-made pond in the Carlisle Lane development as a retention pond.

“We are also looking at including the potential of rain gardens in our downtown enhancement plan when it is updated in the near future,” he said.

Comox Valley Regional District

Marc Rutten, the general manager of the regional district’s engineering services branch, says the CVRD has no stormwater infrastructure to manage.

But the regional district is responsible for land use planning in the rural areas and uses the development permit too to reduce natural hazards (steep slopes) and protect the natural environment (streams). The CVRD has mapped the entire district to identify steep ravines and slopes, and streams, with the goal of ensuring no adverse effects from water flows.

The CVRD also dictates that water flows before and after a property is developed remain equal, so that streams neither flood nor run dry. But the CVRD shifts responsibility to the landower to employ green infrastructure — minimizing impervious surfaces, ponds, rock pits, pervious pavers, etc. — to achieve that goal.

How a street-side rain garden functions

However, stormwater runoff from Courtenay and Comox does affect the CVRD wastewater treatment plant on Brent Road.

Inflow volumes at the treatment plant increase by 3.5 times during the rainy winter months, an indication that stormwater is leaking into the sanitary sewer system.

Rutten said current municipal bylaws don’t allow stormwater to be tied into sewer lines, but there are legacy connections, which were common 70 years ago. Courtenay and Comox have separated sewer and stormwater lines over the last 40 years.

But because sewer and stormwater pipes are usually buried side-by-side, stormwater can leak into a gravity sewage system, such as the Courtenay-Comox sewer lines.

A gravity sewer systems runs under atmospheric pressure and the pipes are generally 25 percent to 75 percent full and flowing downhill. There is generally not enough pressure inside the system to force sewage out of the pipe, but groundwater enters because when groundwater levels rise, static pressure is created to force the water into the sewer pipe through worn out gaskets in pipe section joints.

Darry Montieth, the CVRD’s manager of liquid waste planning, said the Ministry of Highways has some subdivision approval authority in rural areas, and maintains all rural ditches.

But in the developments where the CVRD does have approval authority, Montieth says the district stresses 30 metre riparian setbacks and steep slope guidelines and can require a stormwater drainage plan through the development permit process.

The future

“Stormwater runoff is one of the largest water pollution issues facing the U.S. today,” says Larry Levine, a senior attorney with the National Resource Defense Council, an international environmental advocacy group.

And the challenge for Canadian municipalities is to wholeheartedly embrace green infrastructure as the only affordable and effective long-term solution to how rainwater is managed.

Next: how other communities on Vancouver Island and around the world are meeting this challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE

North East Comox Stormwater Management Plan

Green Communities Canada

Canadian Fresh Water Alliance

 

 

A SHORT GLOSSARY OF STORMWATER TERMS

Bioswales — A stormwater conveyance system similar, but larger than a rain garden (see below).

Evaporation — As water is heated by the sun, surface molecules become sufficiently energized to break free of the attractive force binding them together, and then evaporate and rise as invisible vapour in the atmosphere.

Green infrastructure — Any natural or built system that provides ecological benefits and help to maintain pre-development hydrology. It encompasses natural features like streams, wetlands, forests and parks, as well as engineered systems that manage urban runoff.

Groundwater — Subterranean water is held in crack and pore spaces. Depending on the geology, the groundwater can flow to support streams. It can also be tapped by wells. Some groundwater is very old and may have been there for thousands of years.

Hydrologic cycle — The endless circulation of water. From the beginning of time when water first appeared, it has been constant in quantity and continuously in motions. The same water molecules have been transferred time and time again from the oceans and the land into the atmosphere by evaporation, dropped on the land as precipitation and transferred back to the sea by rivers and ground water.

Low-impact development (LID) — The systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes that result in the infiltration, evapotranspiration or use of stormwater in order to protect water quality and associated aquatic habitat.

Precipitation — Rain, snow or hail from clouds. Clouds move around the world, propelled by air currents. For instance, when they rise over a mountain range, they cool, becoming so saturated with water that water begins to fall as, snow or hail, depending on the temperature of the surrounding air.

Rain garden — A miniature wetland in a residential setting, lower than the adjacent grade to collect rainwater from roofs, driveways or streets, thus allowing infiltration into the ground.

Runoff — Excessive rain or snowmelt can produce overland flow to creeks and ditches. Runoff is visible flow of water in rivers, creeks and lakes as the water stored in the basin drains out.

Transpiration — Water vapour is also emitted from plant leaves by a process called transpiration. Ever day an actively growing plant transpires five to 10 times as much water as it can hold at once.

 

 

 

 

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