Three years of sewer work worth more than $5-million is paying off for the Town of Essex.
This from Director of Infrastructure and Development Chris Nepszy who says Essex is now the only municipality outside of the GTA with a fully functioning hydraulic model of its sanitary and storm sewer system — something he calls a major weapon in the fight against basement flooding.
He says work began in 2016.
"We've done not just the sanitary system upgrades, which ultimately help with basement flooding, but also the behind the scenes with the engineering modelling. We've investigated all of our sanitary and storm sewers. We have a complete, calibrated, working model for both sanitary and storm systems. That you don't see."
Nepszy says the new system eliminates any guess work.
"They've done the investigation on what's in the ground. Size of pipes, where they're connected, where they're out flowing. What the hydraulic model allows you to do is take that information, plug in different rain events, different scenarios and then see what happens to your system. Where does it flood? Where are the best places for improvements to be made?"
Essex Town Council (AM800 News file photo)
He says neighbouring municipalities are now working on similar models.
"What we've done the past three years is enormous in terms of both storm water and sanitary system improvements. So a lot of municipalities are on that track now. We had severe floods back then and others weren't hit that bad. So, within the region, we've definitely done a lot of work that way."
Nepszy says, with the Essex Centre model done, work is already underway on a Harrow Centre model and the town plans to tackle Colchester in 2019.