Council here has directed staff to work with the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA) to develop a plan to fund a clean-out of the Conestogo River to reduce the risk of flooding in Drayton.
Dwight Boyd, senior water resources engineer with the GRCA, attended the Feb. 5 meeting to discuss the situation, in response to a previous request made by council.
At the Jan. 8 meeting councillor Andy Knetsch said he feels the river should be dredged through parts of the village, considering the investment local residents have made in businesses and homes in the area.
However, Boyd told council dredging might not be the answer to avoiding a major flood.
“Lowering the channel would probably reduce the frequent flooding in the fairgrounds, but when you get into a major flood, you get into bridge capacity issues,” he pointed out.
Nonetheless, Boyd said “a clean-out would help things.”
He told council provincial funding for the project may be available through the Watershed Erosion Control Infrastructure (WECI) program, but the deadline to apply for this year is fairly tight.
If WECI funding is available, the project could be done with a combination of WECI and GRCA funding. However, if the funding can’t be obtained, the cost could be split between the conservation authority and the municipality.
The scale of the clean-out chosen will impact the cost of the project, and the amount of paperwork involved, Boyd noted.
“If you don’t really want to do a lot of excavation and just want to trim the vegetation back a bit, there’s really no permit required for that,” he explained.
Council authorized public works director Larry Lynch to work with the GRCA on preparing an application for WECI funding.
Railway embankment
Both council and GRCA officials feel erosion of a railway embankment along the river factors into potential for flooding in Drayton. However, the railway company disagrees.
In an August 2012 letter to the municipality, included in the Feb. 5 council meeting package, CN Rail public works manager Stefan Linder states, “CN does not consider the presence of its infrastructure to be the cause or influence of flooding further downstream within the Town of Drayton, as the entire area is located within the flood plain of the Conestogo River.”
Linder said a review of site conditions by CN Environmental determined “there does not appear to be a sediment-loading issue in the Conestogo River in the vicinity to the CN crossing concrete footing, as documented in the conservation authority’s report. However this sedimentation loading appears to be the result of an unstable bank, upstream of the CN bridge support, where the top of the bank is approximately 30 to 40 feet above water level. There does not appear to be any direct connection between the CN bridge support and the sediment loading in this area of the river.
“In the absence of the CN bridge support, the upstream bank would likely still be eroding and would cause the sediment loading issue.”
