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http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/story.html?id=f9d89b82-a234-4374-a94c-864be910fcf0
Residents demand answers from city
Officials give overview of sewer system to people
whose homes have flooded
Michelle Martin, The StarPhoenix
Published: Wednesday, August 22,
2007
After nearly 140 basements flooded in Saskatoon over
the weekend, affected residents were up in arms
demanding answers from the city at a community meeting
Tuesday evening.
"We're fed up. We've had enough and a lot of our
neighbours are feeling the same way," said meeting
organizer Tara Friesen, a Dundonald Village resident
whose home was flooded for the third time in two years
over the weekend.
The approximately 150 flood victims who attended the
meeting at Massey Place Community Church proved she
wasn't alone in her quest for answers. Many attendees
were from Dundonald Village, where 33 of 94 residences
flooded, and Westridge Village, where 35 of 108
residences flooded -- numbers cited in a Monday press
release from the city. The city also received calls
about 70 other flooded basements.
 Tara Friesen shows her emotions during a
meeting at Massey Place Community Church
Richard Marjan, The
StarPhoenix
The community meeting started calmly as Galen
Heinrichs, an infrastructure systems engineer for the
city, gave an overview of the city's two separate sewer
systems, the storm system and the sanitary system.
He said contrary to popular belief the construction
of the Hampton Park neighbourhood had not affected the
overflows happening in the Confederation Drive area.
Rather, above average rainfall was to blame for the
flooding, he said.
Of the last six major downpours in the Confederation
Park area over the last 30 years, four happened in the
last two-and-a-half years, he said, citing June 2005,
June 2007 and the two storms on Friday and Sunday last
weekend that dropped 107.6 mm of rain on the city over
36 hours.
For homeowners, he recommended they install backflow
valves -- of which the city would fund $2,500 of the
cost through the Flood Protection Program. He also said
the city would look into other solutions such as finding
ways for the sanitary sewer and storm sewer pipes to
operate completely separate from each other.
Through people's stories, it appeared the backflow
valves were either not effective enough or ineffective
altogether. Many lambasted the city for poor planning
and others asked what they should do.
Friesen, a mother of two young girls, broke into
tears as she explained how she and her husband paid out
of pocket to repair their damaged home because if they
made another flood claim in such a short time their
insurance would be cancelled.
Suffering only a couple of inches of dirty, smelly
water in her basement, Friesen was, in a way, a lucky
one in the room. Others at the meeting claimed they had
five or six feet of it in their basements.
Roadways manager Jeff Jorgenson said city staff were
looking to get a plan to council "very soon" and that he
hoped the plan would kick off this year, though he
couldn't stipulate an exact timeline.
"This is our highest priority project," he said. "Our
focus on solutions is to relieve the pressure on the
sanitary system and that's going to happen through
off-site storage of sanitary sewage."
Surface ponds, like in Saskatoon's new neighbourhoods,
would take some pressure off the storm system, he added.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007
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