THUNDER BAY – The ten-year anniversary of the 2012 flood is May 28, and Megan McPhee, who is handling a class-action lawsuit against the City of Thunder Bay, says they likely won’t have a trial date until next year due to court availability.
Five local homeowners are acting as the representative plaintiffs. They each presented their evidence in November to the city's lawyers.
“We had had documentary productions which were several thousands of documents that the sides exchanged and reviewed. Since then, we have done the oral discoveries. So we’ve had oral examination of the city’s representative, which was the ORO [Overall Responsible Operator] who was onsite and in charge of the plant that evening,” said McPhee.
“As a result of those examinations, we have some real clarity on what occurred in the time leading up to the flood and the failures at the plant. We are ready to set the action down for trial.”
The major flood on May 28, 2012, overwhelmed the Atlantic Avenue wastewater treatment plant, causing sewage to back up into homes and businesses, mainly in the East End.
The lawsuit seeks as much as $375 million in damages, alleging the failure of the city-owned treatment plant was the result of operating negligence.
“We know that we had a water treatment plant that was built to handle the types of rainfall that we saw on the evening that it did in fact fail. It had handled similar amounts of rainfall before. But, we know that there were a number of issues at the plant that we’ve outlined the negligence that we say occurred,” said McPhee.
“But, on the evening that the plant failed, and because the plant failed, not only was there significant water back-up into residents’ basements, but we didn’t have the ability, or the plant didn’t have the ability to suck that water back out.”
City manager Norm Gale, in a statement shared with Dougall Media on Friday afternoon, said the city wasn't at fault for the aftermath of the rainfall.
"The rain which fell on May 28, 2012 was unprecedented in the history of the city. It flooded many homes and businesses and It caused the rivers to overflow and flood the streets and parks," Gale said.
"The storm inundated the waste water plant and caused it to fail. The city is aware that the failure of the plant caused wastewater to flood many basements in homes in the city. However, the failure of the plant was in no way related to its maintenance and operation. That is why the city will continue to defend the class action
Although an out-of-court settlement is still possible, McPhee says that at this stage, they’re expecting the class action to go to trial here in Thunder Bay, with proceedings lasting several weeks.
“We were amenable to discussions, but we are ready to go to trial. We have been working with a team of experts, it’s been a tremendous amount of work to put in and to really forensically put together and to understand what happened and what led to the plant failure,” she said.
“And so we’ve put that together and we’re ready to go to trial and we’re confident that we can be successful at trial next year. We’re feeling very optimistic.”
This story has been updated with comments from city manager Norm Gale.
