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Could anything be done?

August 18, 2017   ·   0 Comments

MAYOR JEREMY WILLIAMS called the deluge on June 23 a “once in 100 years” flood, but it was less than six weeks later that another storm dumped almost as much rain and caused almost as much flooding.

We’ll leave it up to scientists to decide whether the real culprit was climate change, in which case 100-year storms could well become annual events.

However, in the more immediate future we think consideration should be given to the lessons learned from Hurricane Hazel in 1954. That time, about seven inches (180 mm) of rain fell in Southern Ontario, killing 81 people and washing out roads and bridges. In its aftermath, the Ontario government created conservation authorities that built many reservoirs to minimize flooding risks, one of them being the Orangeville Reservoir, since renamed Island Lake.

As we see it, new subdivisions planned for Amaranth and Orangeville’s west end will only increase the risk of flooding and present a need for new measures such as creek diversions, the dredging of both Mill Creek and the Credit River below Island Lake and maybe a new bridge or large culvert at Townline.

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