Pumps, not bulldozers

Sydney man would rather deal with floods than have urban forest damaged

SYDNEY — John Duffy has lived directly in the middle of Sydney’s most flood-prone neighbourhood for the past 20 years.

So, the south-end Sydney resident devised an elaborate system of pumps in the basement of his Centre Street home. His washer and dryer sit on wooden platforms three feet above the floor, and tarps hang from the ceiling to wrap his freezer when the water really starts to pour in — which it does, at least twice a year.

Yet, Duffy said he’d prefer to spend his money, effort and more than a few sleepless nights than have anything happen to the Baille Ard Trail.

‘TO DESTROY THE TRAIL IS A DISASTER’

“I would much rather sit here and listen to four sump pumps humming, pumping water out than hear bulldozers tearing down trees and ripping up the ecosystem with no promise that it’s going to work,” Duffy said. “For me, flooding is an inconvenience — to destroy the trail is a disaster.”

The Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s plans to alter the trail date back to Thanksgiving Day in 2016 that saw parts of the municipality besieged by 220 millimetres of rain in less than 24 hours, leading to widespread flooding and more than $85 million in damages.

Following a public meeting at Centre 200, and a $100,000 study by a local engineering firm, CBRM council agreed on a plan: build eight massive berms, eight feet high, 50 feet wide and as much as 400 metres long throughout the trail.

TIME FOR REFLECTION

CBRM Mayor Amanda Mcdougall was a rookie councillor at the time. Now, almost five years later, she believes it’s time to revisit and reconsider that approach. And it seems like that opportunity will happen when council next meets on June 15.

“With any decision you make, whether it’s in the council chamber or in your personal life, a time for reflection is very important,” said Mcdougall, who suggested the addition of a new slate

of councillors might lead to a different decision when it comes to curtailing flooding and the impact on the Baille Ard Trail.

“We have gone back as a council on different issues, we have conversations to get updates — this is no different. We have a council that has really shifted in terms of new membership since then, who haven’t been privy to the conversations around flood mitigation and what the challenges we face are, so it is very timely that we have this opportunity to get all of council up to date, have some conversations with our staff, and it’s important that we spend some time listening to the opinions of the public and the concerns of the public.”

Mcdougall isn’t shy about talking about how much the Baille Ard Trail means to her personally. She announced her candidacy for mayor at the site and it’s where her fiancé proposed to her.

URBAN OASIS

She even intends to temporarily leave her role as mayor at the June 15 meeting so she can freely participate in the debate and advocate for the trail, which she described as an invaluable community asset.

“It’s a place where I do a lot of contemplating, it is a place where I go for serenity, for healing, for peace. It’s a place where during COVID me and my family go to get back to nature and some form of normalcy. It’s also where I recently got engaged. This place is really, really important to me on a personal level,” she said.

“The fact that we have an urban forest — those words alone have significance. Attending conferences and going places all around the country, when people hear those words — urban forest — the first thing they say is ‘You’re so lucky. I wish we could grow a forest.’ And you can’t just grow a forest — it takes hundreds and hundreds of years to establish.”

NO SOLUTION

Wayne Mckay formed the Save the Baille Ard Forest group in the weeks after the CBRM flood mitigation design was approved. While they, along with the Baille Ard Recreation Association, successfully fought to have the number of berms reduced to three, Mckay said it’s still a futile plan that will do much more harm than good.

“If it was a sure-fire way to protect all those buildings and homes, then I’d be ‘OK, I get where you’re coming from,’ but it’s not even close to that. If we do this, then the tide is going to come in and the flooding is going to be bad anyway,” he said. “My whole neighbourhood was flooded and my kids were displaced from their school. My neighbours lost their homes.

I think people were just latching onto whatever was there at the time — we weren’t in a state where we could critically discuss things the same way that we can now.”

The senior water resources engineer who outlined the idea even told council at the time that no amount of engineering could prevent flooding, saying sophisticated computer simulations showed that building structures to contain and control stormwater wouldn’t have much effect.

“The models show very little change — it’s not even an expectation,” said Alexander Wilson of the engineering firm CBCL Ltd.

“This is a natural thing and there’s no realistic option there that we feel will reduce those flood lines. It’s terrible for an engineer to say that because our job is to find solutions but it’s an unfortunate reality.”

For Duffy, that’s not a risk worth taking if it means impacting the trail that brings him so much joy in the days after his basement and property flood.

“The city built into a flood plain — that’s what we did. So live with it, or adapt and overcome. Is it inconvenient for me? Yes, it is, but it’s one that I’m willing to put up with to save the trail. There are 365 days in a year and I have to deal with flooding for maybe four? That’s OK. Once it’s all done and the water recedes, I’ll take my backpack, grab a book, and Thermos of coffee, go up to the trail, pick a tree and unwind and recharge.”