Thursday, February 19, 2009

Public Meeting to Discuss Sewers

I just love bureaucracies. They create such wonderfully explanatory but impractical titles for projects. Take this one for example: "Don and Waterfront Trunk Sewers and Combined Sewer Overflow Control Strategy". What a mouthful. The gist of this project is to capture all stormwater running into the the Don River by building a huge cistern underneath the DVP and then connect it to the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant. If that weren't enough the project is also looking at upgrading the main sewer pipe running underneath Coxwell Avenue that services nearly a million Torontonians. The project started last summer and the city has been doing some investigation as part of the first stage of the project.

Then about a month ago, an investigation of the existing sewer pipe revealed cracks in the inner lining. Although the extent of the cracks can't be determined a worst case scenario would be for the pipe to fail and all that sewage flowing through it (millions of litres) would start flowing into the Don River and then into the Toronto Harbour. This doomsday scenario has caused much panic and tearing out of hair amongst municipal politicians.

Now that the shit has hit the fan, so to speak, and this project has a much higher profile, the first action was to sic the wordsmithers on to this project. Now it has a new title "Cleaning up our Waterways: The Don River and Central Waterfront Project". Much nicer, but says less about the project than the original.

So the project is still going ahead but with a much higher profile. If you are interested in participating, you can see for yourself next Monday, February 23. The next session will be held at the Hotel Novotel Toronto Centre, 45 The Esplanade, from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Details of this meeting should have been posted on the project website but there is no update there yet. So take it from me, there is a meeting on Monday. Here is the agenda for the meeting:

6:30 p.m. Open House
7:00 p.m. Video Screening
7:15 p.m. Presentation and Dialogue
9:00 p.m. Wrap-Up

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Heh, don't mean to be a naerdowell, but wasn't that a function of the original Taylor Mill pond, below Thorncliffe Farm, above the Forks of the Don, before the DVP and Trunk sewer was built!?!?

So now spend millions, if not billions, to reengineer in a panic what has already been re-reengineered with lack of foresight?!? hahah...

I'll be there...Coxwell Boulevard is where I grew up, I delivered Toronto Star newspapers to that entire neighbourhood. It'll be a shame to see Barbara Crescent disrupted so...

Brian