Greater Napanee offers flood mitigation suggestions for residents, up to homeowners to fund and implement them

Adam Prudhomme
Editor

Last year’s flooding is still fresh in their mind, Greater Napanee shoreline residents are no doubt a bit uneasy as the calendar flips to May.

It was right around this time last year municipalities across Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were hit hard with overflows from rivers and lakes, causing over $208 million in insured damages, according to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc.

In preparation for possible flooding this year, Town of Greater Napanee council and staff are providing residents with a list of flood mitigation options. They stop short of recommending any particular method and warn residents it’s up to them to do their own research.

“We’re recommending water bladders as a solution but we’re not recommending one company, we’re not recommending a product,” said Greater Napanee Ward 1 Councillor John McCormack, who owns property along a shoreline himself. “We’re being cautious there.”

A water bladder is essentially an inflatable dam that acts as a barrier between water and a home.

“Some residents had asked if we might go out and buy some and then rent them out or loan them out, we just don’t have the money for that,” added McCormack.

Earlier this year the town hosted an open house for residents who had experienced water-damage to their property. Those who attended that meeting were given the contact information to a consulting company that had expressed interest in using Greater Napanee as part of a test pilot project for various flood mitigation methods-though the homeowners would assume all costs if they agreed to take part in the study and the town offered no endorsement of the services one way or the other.

As with just about everything these days, COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into any plans to protect against flooding, making sandbags a non-option. Using them could encourage residents to disregard physical distancing protocols. Though neighbouring communities such as Prince Edward County are offering ‘fill-your-own’ sandbag stations, there won’t be any on this side of the ferry dock. The ensuing state of emergency stemming from the pandemic has put too much of a strain on Greater Napanee’s municipal budget.

“Local residents last year and in 2017 found it very cumbersome, you needed three people to do it and it’s time consuming,” McCormack said of sandbags. “I know our staff got quotes for what it would cost for a certain amount of sandbags and labour and all that and I think it would have been like $100,000 minimum for the town to have some kind of presence in that program (similar to what PEC offers), so we opted against that.”

McCormack added the town will also continue to lend its support along with other neighbouring municipalities calling for the International Joint Commission (IJC) to repeal Plan 2014 to deal with water levels along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The IJC insists 2019’s floods were due to high levels of rain and snow and not their management strategy of the Moses-Saunders Dam.

Shoreline residents looking for some reason to be optimistic can note that current water levels are below last year’s at this time, though as of mid-April Lake Ontario was about 75.3 metres above sea level, which is 0.5 metres above average for that time of year.