'Just so much water': Essex releases sewage into Lake Erie during massive flooding event

The storms of Aug. 24 saw 214 millimetres of rain dumped on Harrow and Colchester in Essex.

The Colchester Lagoon took in 14 times the normal volume of water to its treatment facility. The Harrow Lagoon, eight times the normal amount, according to town staff.

“There was just so much water it just had nowhere to go,” said Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy Monday night, after the town’s infrastructure services staff laid out the drastic steps that were taken to relieve pressure on the system.

“Unfortunately is the first time we've ever had to discharge our sewage treatment plant into the lake,” said Bondy. “We've never done that before. So that just tells you the scale and the magnitude of water down there now.”

The information came to light during a special meeting of the Town of Essex — a post-mortem of sorts —from the ‘one-in-one hundred year storm’ on Aug. 24. According to town officials, the sewage released into the lake was partially treated.

Town officials spent an hour detailing the efforts by town staff to relieve pressure on the system while roads filled with water and ditches overflowed, leaving behind washed-out roadways and fields.

The town admitted it doesn’t have the resources to deal with back-to-back storms like the wind that blew through the region just a week prior and the severe flooding event that followed.Flooding following heavy rainfall in Harrow, Ont. on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. (Courtesy: Monica Bundle)

Staff did all they could with the resources they had, but were admittedly overwhelmed by Mother Nature.

“We're gonna see those rivers and those streams, breach their banks and they're gonna flood the low lying areas,” said James Bryant, the director of watershed management for the Essex Region Conservation Authority.

Of course, hundreds of residents won’t soon forget how their basements ended up taking the left-over water.

“No storm system is designed to take away in that much rain,” said Bondy, after staff spoke of the design of town sewers, which are designed to handle a two-to-five year flooding event.

“Can we focus on improvements? Yeah, but it all comes with a cost,” said Bondy, noting engineering enhancements would cost in the millions, an unreadable proposition for the existing tax base to take on.

Residents looking for answers on next steps didn’t get any during Monday’s meeting, aside from some tips on how to safeguard their homes for future events like installing back-water valves, disconnecting downspouts and taking advantage of the town’s flood protection subsidies.

Town CAO Doug Sweet also detailed improved communication plans to better advise residents when weather events will be coming and how best to protect against them.

“I think what they're looking for is really what is the town doing to prevent this? Are we making bigger ditches are we putting in more drains?” asked Ward 1 coun. Katie McGuire Blais. “Telling our residents well, when it rains we're going to communicate with you more and let you know rain’s coming, protect your house.

“To me that’s BS. We know rain’s coming. We know we're going to flood. What are we going to do about it?”

The town advised residents it also submitted an application to the province through the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians.

If approved that program would top up eligible homeowners who weren’t made whole by their insurance during the August flooding.

“They are currently reviewing our requests and they are sending a team down to do to determine if we meet the criteria and if they will activate the program within our town,” said Sweet.

Town staff and council met behind closed doors after the public meeting.

The Mayor and deputy mayor will host open houses in each ward over the next four Tuesdays to hear from residents.

“You have to have tough skin in this job and we want to give people the opportunity to come out the good the bad, the ugly is it residents bring it out,” said Bondy.