East Gwillimbury estimates excessive water flushing is costing town $400K per year

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 28, 2023

When Sharon area councillors Brian Johns and Tara Roy-DiClemente were out campaigning in the fall for the municipal election they were hearing a surprising question from residents -- what’s happened to the water?

Residents in certain neighbourhoods were telling the councillors their water was discoloured and didn’t smell right.

Holland Landing resident Matthew Lawrence said he’s noticed a change in the water over the last five years. “There’s lots of iron in the water,” he said. “It creates scum in the back of toilet tank and sink drains.”

When he first moved to the area in 2000, he said it wasn’t an issue at all. After recently replacing a water softener and seeing little to no improvement, Lawrence has moved to using iron removing pucks in his toilet.

While the town tests the water thousands of times a year, Roy-DiClemente and Johns brought back the concerns to the town. Staff investigated the matter and increased flushing of water was needed. Roy-DiClemente and Johns reiterated that the water is safe drinking water and the issue is mainly one of esthetics.

“We are the region’s customer and they are selling us a product that is substandard and we are not able to use it,” she said.   

Roy-DiClemente is irritated because excessive water flushing has been an issue for several years most notably in Harvest Hills and the Bales Drive areas.

“It’s the end of February and we are still actively looking to solve the challenge,” Johns added.

The area in Sharon where Johns was hearing complaints from was the area west of Leslie Street. Johns said the town is flushing more than normal which is the prudent thing to do but they are far exceeding their flushing budget as they look for a more sustainable solution.

“We are into another significant flushing issue. It’s just a wasteful activity to be flushing water at will,” chief administrative officer Tom Webster said.

A wasteful activity that the town is estimating is cost them an additional $400,000 last year.

“I would say that we’re not very proud of the wasted water that we have in East Gwillimbury. We should be walking the walk and talking the talk,” Mayor Virginia Hackson said. “It’s just fundamentally wrong in this day and age instead of being able to show that we can conserve it we are going the other direction.”  

York Region supplies East Gwillimbury water from groundwater wells and Lake Ontario. The region then invoices the town for providing treated, safe drinking water to distribute. While town staff said water main flushing is a normal and typical operational procedure used by municipalities to maintain their water system and improve disinfectant levels and ensure safe drinking water for residents, that higher-than-normal levels of flushing was required in 2022.

According to town staff, the increased flushing was required to maintain optimal disinfectant levels in the distribution system. Maintaining optimal disinfectant levels throughout the distribution system can be associated with a number of challenges. The disinfectant levels can be affected by seasonal changes in temperature, hydraulics, or how the water moves and is consumed in the system.

Wendy Kemp, director of Infrastructure asset management for public works at York Region said regular water main flushing is an industry standard to improve water quality throughout the system and that regular water flushing has occurred in various pockets of East Gwillimbury over the years. “Flushing is used to bring in fresh water and remove built-up sediment; at no time has there been a risk to public health or safety,” she said.  

As the system grows, Kemp said new infrastructure will help meet future high water demands which will help alleviate the need for flushing.

While the region and the municipality are pledging to work together to find solutions, there is a feeling that this issue has lingered regularly for a close to a decade. “It’s dragged on for far too long,” Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said. 

While frustrated that the issue continues to crop up, Roy-DiClemente is optimistic a solution can be found. "I'm confident we have the right people working on it," she said.