Heather Wright/The Independent

Warwick Township council wants to turn an existing creek into a municipal drain to help with flooding in heavy rains.

In the last two years, there have been two, 100-year floods in the township which closed Highway 402, washed out Kingscourt Bridge and flooded dozens of homes in Watford. The town’s staff has been looking into ways to improve the drainage to avoid massive damage in the future. 

The township’s public works manager, Kyle Chisholm, says 90 per cent of Watford’s storm sewers outlet into one water course. He recommended, and council agreed, to turn it into a municipal drain.

Chisholm, in his report to council, says the meandering creek needs to be cleaned out.

“My intent right now is just to get authority to go in and clean out obstacles; beaver dams, fallen trees, in specific scenarios where it makes sense,” he told council Monday.

Chisholm says it also makes sense to make some channels to redirect heavy rains.

“I’m looking for the drainage engineer to identify locations for high flow shelves where, potentially at some of those meanders – where they’ll peel off a little bit of topsoil – to create a larger area for the water to flow in high rain events,” he said adding there was no plan right now to straighten out the water course.

Chisholm is hopeful the plan will help. “We have a substantial number of drains that already drain to this creek, but there’s no care and control. We can only enter and remove an obstacle if there’s a risk of flooding to a road, whereas, if it was under the Drainage Act, you would be more proactive and remove the burdens at a more timely basis before it becomes a flooding issue.”

With council’s approval, the township will spend about $10,000 to engineer a solution. There will then be a public meeting on site for neighbours in the region to give input.

Making the watercourse a municipal drain means any landowners who benefit from having the water redirected will pay for some of the construction.