gŏđŏ editionap.ca L’Orignal drainage woes : Pay now or pay later
However, at a recent meeting, council conceded that the municipality must at least draw up plans for the work, while hop- ing that subsidies will become available for the job that would cost at least $400,000. Council has agreed with the administra- tion to spend $15,000 for a topographical study, which is deemed essential before any further plans and specifications can be prepared. This expense is to be covered through the 2012 surplus. “We have no choice,”observed Councillor Jacques Lacelle. “If somebody gets hurt, it will be worse than it is now. Every year we are paying $10,000 to $20,000 every time around Lemieux and found the Leda clay deposits close to the South Nation River. The townsite was declared “at risk” in 1989 and the provincial government arranged to relocate residents to safer areas and the original buildings in the village either relo- cated or demolished. The parish cemetery is the sole remaining sign that a village ex- isted at all. Two years after the village was aban- doned, heavy rains resulted in a severe landslip that destroyed 17 hectares of farm- land at the edge of the former town site and left a crater behind that measured 320 metres wide and 18 metres deep. A three- kilometre stretch of the nearby South Na- tion River was dammed up for several days by the slide debris. Part of County Road 16 vanished into the crevasse. The latest slide occurred outside of the bounds of the old townsite. The SNC has a re-vegetation program in place using grasses, brush, and trees to try to stabilize the soil and reclaim the area as a wildlife habitat. There are still homes and farms near the old town site. SNC did a landslide aware- ness information open house for area residents last December. St-Amour would like to see the provincial government help sponsor an updated survey of the Lemieux site using the latest advances in geo-survey science to determine just how widespread the zone of instability might be. He expressed optimism that something might result from themeeting withMoE of- ficials. He noted that ministry staff proved very interested in learning the history of slide activity in the Lemieux area.
it floods.” In the 2010 and 2011 budgets, the town- ship had allocated $400,000 for the sewer upgrade, public works superintendent James McMahon recalled in a memo to council. Engineering work began in 2012, but further preparation was suspended when the municipality concluded it did not have the funds to finance the improve- ments. Plans are a must because the On- tario government will give priority to those projects that are “shovel ready,”pointed out Councillor Paul Emile Duval. “This project is necessary because the storm sewer system in this area (Peter
Street & Wharf Street) is very old and needs to be re-designed and replaced. As Council is aware we are having reoccurring flood- ing issues in this area and they must be ad- dressed,”McMahon wrote in a 2012 memo. “The pipes are collapsing. We can’t patch them anymore,”he stressed at the last regu- lar council session. Sewage work Administrator Jean Thériault emphasized that the township has no plans prepared for other major jobs that are in the works. Future projects include improvements to the Vankleek Hill sewage lagoon and a snow dump.
RICHARD MAHONEY richard.mahoney@eap.on.ca
PLEASANT CORNERS | Long-standing drainage problems in L’Orignal are forc- ing Champlain Township to act – even- tually. The storm sewer job has been on the planning board for the last four years. But a lack of funds has forced the town- ship to postpone corrective measures that would alleviate flooding on Peter andWharf Streets in the village.
Lemieux landslide: Could it happen again? GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
“This perked up their ears,” he said, adding that the MoE concern may be who would shoulder the blame if another slide occurred with tragic results.
Ontario Environment staff got a wake- up call from The Nation’s mayor about the landslide risk that still exists in his municipality. Mayor François St-Amour teamed up with staff from the South Nation Conser- vation Authority (SNC) for a meeting with Ministry of Environment (MoE) officials during the recent Ontario Good Roads Association (OGRA) conference in Toron- to. The meeting topic was the situation with the Lemieux landslide area and the homes that may still be located within the zone of instability. “Nothing’s been done to buy out those residents,” St-Amour said during a recent interview. Lemieux is classed as a ghost town now after the main community was aban- doned during a two-year period between 1989 and 1991. Soil testing showed the village was built over top of a zone of un- stable Leda clay, a type of soil that lique- fies under stress. The unstable soil created a potential slide risk and since the former mill town was founded in 1850, there were two small landslides in the vicinity of the vil- lage. The first was in 1910 just west of Lemieux. The second was in 1971, a cou- ple weeks after a landslide destroyed a small village in Québec that also rested on a bed of Leda clay. The SNC tested the soil under and
File photo
Slips show alongside roadways in the South Nation basin.
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