Taylor Creek Park suffered from another torrential rain Wednesday evening. The overflow of stormwater caused Taylor-Massey Creek to flood in the surrounding areas and caused three vehicles and four people to be stranded.
In the wake of yet another flooding in Taylor Creek Park, Ward 31 Beaches-East York Councillor Janet Davis discussed the importance of building the appropriate infrastructures to manage these storm overflows.
"What we are seeing is climate change happening before our eyes," she said. "These events of extreme flooding have to be incorporated in the infrastructure planning ahead of us."
Recently, an information meeting was held at Warden Hilltop Community Centre for a public information meeting about the stability and function of Taylor-Massey Creek.
The Taylor-Massey Creek Restoration Plan is currently undergoing its agency and public consultation stage of the municipal class environmental assessment (EA) process.
This is only the second time that the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) has met with the public. The first meeting was held on Nov. 30, 2013.
The TRCA invited interested stakeholders to discuss alternative solutions the City is considering to address the stream bank erosion in Taylor-Massey Creek.
Members of the volunteer group, The Taylor Massey Project (TMP), were at attendance among others in the community. Founding chair, Andrew McCammon, says he was deeply concerned with what he saw and expressed his frustrations about the plan.
"It’s a very thin gruel of a start of a concept of the plan," said McCammon.
"Will there be benefits for this? Yes. But this is not a restoration plan. This is simply an engineer’s approach."
McCammon says that the plans don’t indicate any effort to regenerate the watershed. It simply addresses threats to city-owned infrastructure.
In May 2009, the TMP group proposed their own $4.3-million project proposal, Reach by Reach, which they had hoped would be (but wasn’t) adopted as part of TRCA’s Wet Weather Flow Master Plan.
The Wet Weather Flow Master Plan was first implemented by the Toronto City Council in 2003 as a 25-year plan to reduce the adverse effects of weather to the ecosystem of the city’s watershed areas.
"We need federal and provincial support," said Coun. Davis. "We need more from the federal government, especially. The provincial government requires [the City] to fund our plans through the water bill. It’s simply not adequate to fund large capital projects like these."
The Taylor-Massey Creek Restoration Plan is slated to be completed by September 2014.
Comment submissions from the public are due on Thursday, July 3 and TMP is preparing a draft of their concerns.
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