Bear with this piece. Granted it is pretty dopey in a lot of ways but at least they are starting to realize weather [read climate from longer sequences of weather events] is cyclical and just because certain events only appear about 10 times in a 1,000-year proxy series doesn’t mean they’ll be 100 years apart. If conditions suit you might get a run of such events and then not a single one for centuries.
The financial tally for the Finch Avenue Washout ranks as the most expensive natural disaster in the province’s history. The private insurance payout nudges $600 million. As a point of comparison, insurance payouts for the Peterborough flood of 2004 didn’t quite reach a sixth of that.
We knew it was bad then.
Now we know it’s only going to get worse.
Between the years 1986 and 2006, Toronto experienced not one but eight storms of the magnitude that had been predicted to occur no more than once in a quarter-century. The Finch Avenue Washout was the capper, a one-in-100-years storm for which the city’s infrastructure was woefully under-designed. “It was the transformative event that really triggered a new approach to urban flooding,” D’Andrea says.
When we talk about the city’s “adaptation” strategy to water management in the face of extreme weather, the Finch Avenue Washout is the trigger point. In the wake of past storms, D’Andrea explains, the city upsized sanitary sewer systems commensurate with the size of the storm.
“Time marches on and inevitably there’s a storm far greater than the storm that system was adjusted to” he says. “So you can appreciate what the public confidence is as we march forward.” Public confidence, D’Andrea adds, acknowledging the sea of sodden city home owners this summer, is “out the window.”
Does it help to know that there are many smart people at work on the problem? Post-2005, the city quickly and aggressively amended its Wet Weather Flow Master Plan, which had been adopted in 2003 with a primary focus on the cleanup of the waterfront and stream restoration in the hard-surfaced, urbanized environment. The initial master plan made no provisions for climate change adaptation.
“In the wake of past storms, D’Andrea explains, the city upsized sanitary sewer systems commensurate with the size of the storm.”
Non sequitur. The head man might look into upsizing STORM sewers.
Additionally, the storms may be no stronger than before. Development creates less permeable ground, resulting in greater runoff from the same amount of rain.
GC, not necessarily. Due to inflow and infiltration, (leaks, broken drainpipes, manholes, etc) stormwater does get into the sanitary sewage system. In fact, that’s the primary mess that sewer plants have to deal with as you can easily overload your clarifiers and get washouts (partially treated sludge going out the end), which is the primary problem of the system. Then, there’s the possibility that they have a combined sanitary/storm system, which is a mess.
Of course, no sewer will help with a washout of those proportions, where bridges are getting washed away. For that, you need dams.
Good upgrade.
But it should be noted that the big sanitary sewer system problem Toronto had with the Finch Ave Washout was that a sanitary sewer was washed out, resulting in a massive spill. Making it bigger, the government “solution,” wouldn’t have helped.
Torontonians are not known for being good at science. They can be fooled by anyone.
cheers