Markham celebrates first phase in storm control
Bayview Glen portion completed
Yorkregion.com
July 28, 2016
By Simone Joseph
Nine years of hard work has paid off for this Thornhill “sewer rat”.
During that time, Eileen Liasi and her three fellow “sewer rats” lobbied Markham Council to improve the infrastructure (including storm sewers, watermains and catchbasins) that helps control floods.
Liasi and her cohorts were nicknamed “the sewer rats” or “the storm water ladies of Thornhill”.
These residents have worked to make sure Thornhill’s flood control system was improved following a major storm in August 2005 that caused extensive flooding of private property and roadways.
Markham politicians and residents gathered in Thornhill Wednesday morning to celebrate the completion of the first phase of Markham’s flood control program. This first phase was completed in the Bayview Glen area, deemed to be the one most in need of storm protection improvements.
This Bayview Glen neighbourhood is north of Steeles Avenue between Leslie Street and Bayview Avenue.The Flood Control Program is a long-term, city-wide initiative to improve storm drainage capacity and limit surface and basement flooding risks in urban areas.
In an interview before Wednesday’s event, Liasi recalled the devastation the 2005 storm wrought in her German Mills neighbourhood.
“I was very concerned when I saw the houses between Yonge Street and Bayview Avenue on a slope getting terrible floods,” Liasi said. “I live on a street which slopes down to German Mills Creek and I thought it was safe because I thought if there’s a flood, it will drain right down the street past me but it didn’t”.
Markham Ward 1 councillor Valerie Burke thanked Liasi and the other Storm Sewer Ladies for their hard work.
“You did so much research and went to so many meetings.” Ricardo Mashregi, chair of the Grandview Area Residents Association worked with other ratepayers associations in Thornhill to lobby councillors. They worked with city staffers and a consultant for eight years analyzing the infrastructure issue and recommendations from the city’s consultant.
The consultant suggested five-year storm protection, which would have protected Markham residents and their properties from storms that occur once every five years.
“We thought it was inadequate,” Mashregi said.
The residents groups wanted 100 year protection, to protect against even those rare storms that come once every 100 years. So residents lobbied councilors.
Burke and Scarpitti both acknowledged the journey to today has been a long one.
It happened over a couple of council terms, Scarpitti said.
“It has been a long haul,” Burke said.
Over the past two years, Markham has: Upgraded about two kilometres of storm sewers from the 1960s (some of which were eight metres underground), replaced more than two kilometres of old cast iron water mains and relined many of the sanitary sewers to prevent leaking. It installed more than 100 new manholes and catch basins and built a large water quality treatment tank at the outlet to the Don River to help restore watershed quality.
Today, infrastructure work in Mashregi’s Grandview neighbourhood (phase two of the flood management project) is underway.
The work started in early summer and is expected to finish in the summer of 2017.
Mashregi believes the project should have come to fruition sooner.
“Certainly it was not fast enough but it is what it is,” he said.
He lives on Almond Avenue and remembers during the storm in 2005, the flooding was so high that the water reached the height of people’s car headlights. His pool overflowed and many people’s basements were flooded.
So, how successful and effective is Markham’s flood control program?
Says Toinette Bezant, resident of Bayvew Glen and former president of its residents association. “The proof will be in the pudding when we experience the next big storm,” Bezant said Monday. She is another of the “sewer rats”.
