KENILWORTH – Water flooded the yard of a Mount Forest home last month and seeped through the foundation and into the basement.
Homeowners John and Julie Benns say the flooding is a direct result of a culvert Wellington North Township installed across Ayrshire in September, which the Benns say diverts water directly on to their property.
They delegated to Wellington North council during a meeting on April 7, asking township officials to have the culvert moved back to its former placement.
“Our hope is that the culvert gets diverted and reinstated across to the east side (of) Ayrshire Street, where it was originally and worked just fine.”
The Benns say the flooding took place on March 15 on their property at 460 Clyde Street, when they “were away for the weekend and got a call from Howard Tregunna.”
In a written statement to council, the Benns say Tregunna was part of the Reeves Construction crew hired to install the culvert, and he “totally disagreed with this, worried that it would cause severe flooding onto our property.”
They said Tregunna happened to be in the area and saw the flooding, so he called the Benns to let them know.
“Our neighbours, Glenn and Kathy Mauer, were here carrying water out of our house when we arrived home,” the Benns state.
“We’ve been there seven years and never had a flood – never had a problem with water,” John said during the council meeting.
“We’re getting water from both sides of the street now, which we didn’t before. So that was the reason why we got all this water in our basement, I guess,” he said.
“And it’s only going to get worse, I believe, with more construction, more homes … Maybe you can help us out with this?” John asked of council, noting one solution would be to “remove the culvert altogether.”
Mayor Andy Lennox said, “We’re very aware of the issue as council in terms of the impact of what the rapid snow melt has had on your property, and certainly staff are engaged with our engineering teams to do a review of the situation to try to prevent it from reoccurring.”
John said the big thaw wasn’t the only reason for the flooding. “With a lot of rain as well it also makes a big effect.”
“Absolutely,” Lennox said. “But I know our staff have been out on the site for the larger rain events and … I don’t believe there’s been any spillage outside of the ditch on those occasions from what I’ve been hearing.
“But certainly we want to make sure that … our design process is for a 100-year flood. We want to make sure that it fully conforms with that and try to prevent whatever we can of spillover onto your property and your neighbours’ properties as well,” Lennox said.
“We are taking this matter seriously and certainly we’re not going to get it resolved today but we are working towards a solution, and certainly we will try to involve you as the time proceeds,” he noted.
“Before everything is finalized we will be asking members of your neighbourhood to participate in that process to make sure we get all the issues identified,” Lennox said.
“When I was out on site there was some discussion about some pre-existing challenges and so we want to make sure we take care of all of those at the same time.
“So stay tuned. I think work is in progress and we certainly will be trying to make sure that this doesn’t reoccur,” Lennox said.
The Benns say that if they don’t feel they have the township’s support in making changes to the culvert to avoid future flooding, “an unbiased third party engineering company of our choice should be called to advise on it.”
