TBM council delays 'top-priority' sewage system upgrades

The Blue Mountains council has put a sewage upgrade project labelled as a “top priority” by town staff on hold after hearing concerns from residents. 

At its committee of the whole meeting on July 2, council delayed making a decision on a staff report recommending the town proceed with design work for the reconstruction of Bay Street East, a project that includes upgrades to the town’s underground water and sewage infrastructure.

Despite having a full report and recommendation from staff on the project, council voted to request another staff report outlining other options for the route of underground work and the road design.

Staff have recommended a new sewage forcemain underground up Bay Street East to Grey Street and then up to the Thornbury sewage plant. The existing underground infrastructure in the area is quite old and approaching its end of life.

The new force main is critical to increase the capacity of the sewage system, according to staff.

The staff report also recommended a full urban redesign of Bay Street East as part of the work, which would add sidewalks and curbs. The underground work is being combined with work that is required for the upgrade of the sewage plant, which is a separate project.

“This project is a top priority for the town to protect homes from sewage surcharge, replace failing infrastructure, address infiltration into the existing system, and provide allocation to existing development projects (such as Campus of Care) – it is critical to be completed without delay,” the staff report on the matter stated.

However, in a 6-0 vote council turned around the report and requested more information from staff. Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon was absent.

The move came after staff repeatedly warned council that delaying the project would increase risk to the town of the sewage system possibly backing up into local residences, increase the costs when the work eventually gets done and would place a hold on new development in Thornbury as the sewage system is essentially at capacity.

Although council had approved the Bay Street East route for the new forcemain some time ago, members of council expressed concern that they had not seen other route options that had been investigated by staff.

“We’ve not had the benefit of the full information to make a good decision,” said Coun. Paula Hope.

In the resolution, council asked staff for more information about alternative routes for the underground work and alternative designs for the road re-construction –information that was included in a presentation made by staff and project engineers at a public information centre about the project held in April.

Other route options included in the April public presentation were: running the forcemain underneath Highway 26 (which would result in the highway being under construction for some time), running the forcemain underneath the Georgian Trail or following the current route using Elgin, Huron and Arthur Streets – an option that was deemed as more difficult and expensive.

At the meeting, local Bay Street residents were out in full force to indicate their opposition to the project. A total of nine delegations made presentations to council indicating a number of concerns including: the full urbanized design of the new street significantly changing the character of the neighbourhood, loss of trees, more traffic and parking issues.

In addition to the delegations, a number of residents wrote letters to council opposing the project and six more residents spoke during the public comments portion of the meeting, with town staff also reading another three written comments that were received.

A number of residents asked council to be flexible on the proposed design of the road.

“Why is it not possible to consider an exception to the town standard in order to maintain the original aspects of Bay Street East, and to avoid the imposition of a widened, suburban design in one of the original heritage neighbourhoods of Thornbury?” said local resident Sandra Banks.