Heather Wright/The Independent

There was frustration and flooding as up to three inches of rain fell in parts of Lambton County over the Easter weekend.

Corunna seemed to bear the brunt of the heavy storms April 4 with photos of flooded streets circulating on social media. 

By 10:30 am a number of local streets were flooded including Beckwith which was, according to residents, unpassable for a time. Some residents questioned whether rapid growth in Corunna is causing some of the flooding.

Others noted the heavy rains which hit the township, an estimated 1.8 to three inches, would have inundated any system. It was a thought echoed by Mayor Jeff Agar on social media. “These types of storms there are no municipal systems that can handle this much water at once,” he wrote.

Residents crowded into the St. Clair Township council chambers Tuesday, questioning what the township can do to make things better.

Nicole Krohn was there. She had talked to council last May about the flooding of her parent’s Alfred Street home and was disappointed she was back again, after her parents home flooded Saturday.

“This is an infrastructure issue. From the minutes from the last meeting, Mr. Neely (St. Clair’s coordinator of operations) admitted the older infrastructure like that in most of the township’s urban areas is only designed for two year storm events,” she told council Tuesday. 

“The report states that the current system is already under designed for even a minor storm event,” Krohn said.

While Krohn pointed out the issues with the flooding and asked that a complete study be done on the problem, she also committed to being part of the solution.

“I intend to do my part for my community by creating a Citizens Committee to gather quantitative data around the flooding and to work together with the township to determine to determine further resolutions to the issue.”

Andrew Malpass, engineering coordinator for the township, asked the residents to send in their complaints. “If we get a log of these incidents, then we can start to track where there’s flooding, and where these floods occur, and then we can utilize that to form trends, and then we can identify the problem areas and move forward.”

Kevin Hoggerd has lived on Beckwith Street for 15 years. In the last two years, there have been two floods in his basement. “Is there something that has changed in our neighborhood that’s causing this?”

“It does certainly seem that something has changed as far as the amount of flow coming from the north, which is predominantly NOVA Chemical owned land,” said Director of Public Works Brian Black. He says the township is working on the issue with an engineering firm to see what the problem is and what can be done to fix it.

Several residents told council they were facing insurance problems because they have put flooding claims in before. One person said they’ve seriously considered leaving Corunna because of the constant concern for flooding.

Councillor Holly Foster asked for and council agreed to arrange a third-party study to be done. “The cost to fix the infrastructure system will be astronomical. We do need the study and we need to move on that,” she said.

“I’m very uncomfortable what’s going on with the infrastructure in the township…that’s why my motion is to get on that study…I’m not prepared to wait any longer.”

While the flooding seemed to be the worst in Corunna, other communities were also inundated. Paul daSilva, the public works director in Plympton-Wyoming says Wyoming experienced street flooding April 4. At press time there was no word whether homes were affected.

Large ponds of water could also be seen in rural areas of Plympton-Wyoming and Warwick.

In Petrolia, Bear Creek flooded Bridgeview Park with two feet of water. It has already started to recede.