Oral Submission to Planning & Environment Committee
Carp River Audit
Ted Cooper – May 13, 2008
Good morning Mr. Chair and Committee members, my name is Ted Cooper. I am a City of Ottawa employee, but I have taken time off work this morning so that I may appear before Committee to provide my personal comments about the audit of the Carp River related projects.
Development in the Carp River watershed, and development of Carp River floodplain has been before this Committee and its predecessors prior to amalgamation, many times. Some examples are:
– The channelization of the Carp River through Glen Cairn in the 1970’s;
– The development of the Bridlewood community in the 1980’s and 1990’s;
– The development of the Terry Fox Business Park in the 1990’s and 2000’s;
– The development of Kanata West in the 2000’s;
Glen Cairn developed prior to the annexation of Nepean Township in the 1970’s. So when the Carp River was channelized through Glen Cairn, little could be known or even anticipated about the impact of development of the Bridlewood Community on flood flows through Glen Cairn.
As the Bridlewood Community was being planned and developed, increased flows from the development caused the former Region to have to react, and increase the capacity of culverts under Eagleson Road, and Kanata had to react by increasing the capacity of culverts under Old Colony Road. By 1996, the year of the first flood of Glen Cairn, conditions in the watershed were ripe for the flooding scenario predicted in the 1983 Carp River floodplain mapping study, when it was identified that flood waters would back-up at Castlefrank Road and Rickey’s Place, causing water to flood residential areas in areas of reclaimed floodplain.
In the late 1990’s development of the Terry Fox Business Park commenced. In a Committee Report dated July 4, 2002, barely a week after the second flooding of Glen Cairn on June 27, 2002, staff recommended a zoning bylaw amendment, creating a Two Zone floodplain policy area on the east side of the Carp River, between Highway 417 and Palladium Drive. Committee and Council approved the staff report that stated:
“A comprehensive analysis of the Carp River system and the potential for a two zone for the reach from Richardson Side Road to the Glen Cairn Detention Pond has been conducted. The findings indicate that a two-zone approach can be applied to the subject lands.”
This was in a report from 2002! And here we are in 2008 considering the audit of later, much more detailed studies that have been found seriously wanting – studies undertaken to support two zone policy again in the same reach!
In 2004, the Sensplex was built in part on reclaimed floodplain, as was the SMART Technologies development in 2006.
In an apparent repeat of history of development in the watershed, the channelization of the Carp River in Kanata West has been planned without considering the impact of 200 Ha of future upstream development known as the Fernbank lands. This is not unlike the circumstances when channelization of the Carp River in Glen Cairn was undertaken without consideration of the impact of urbanization of the Bridlewood area.
Just downstream from the Terry Fox Business Park the two Highway 417 bridges that are supposed to have 1m of freeboard when the 100-year flood occurs have only 0.5m of freeboard – this is before accounting for the flood level increases noted in the Auditor General’s report. What kind of potential liability has this created for the City?
Given that five Justices of the Ontario Court of Appeal previously ruled in 1909 that the point of sufficient outlet for the channelization of the Carp River, then a rural watershed, was downstream of the Village of Carp, if and / or when flooding occurs that was not properly accounted for by the uncalibrated models, what kind of liability will have been created for the City by a project that resulted in improvements only as far downstream as Richardson Sideroad?
I have twenty years of experience as a water resources engineer in this Province. The approach to be taken in floodplain management is one that involves caution. Ignoring the history of flooding, and defying decisions of the Ontario Court of Appeal is for risk takers. The City of Ottawa should not be in the business of taking such risks where the health and safety of its residents are involved.
The audit needs to probe deeper to determine why the City entertained such risk on this project. Are we dealing with more than a perceived conflict of interest? Have there been failings in the management of this project? To whom is Mississippi Valley Conservation accountable? The audit has done well in explaining what went wrong. The public deserves answers to understand why things have gone wrong.
Thank-you.