Friday’s rain proved not to be a problem for the Atlantic Avenue sewage treatment plant.
Mayor Keith Hobbs apologized to the city’s infrastructure and operations manager Darrell Matson Saturday for continually asking for updates on the plant’s status as the city experienced its first significant rainfall Friday evening since last week’s flooding.
“He put my mind at ease around 9:30, 10 p.m. so I was able to get some sleep,” said Hobbs. “Progress is being made at the plant. We’re moving forward and things are looking rosier.”
Matson said they carefully monitored the plant during the rainfall and they had additional staff assigned to the water collection in the sewer system.
“They were out monitoring water levels and sewage levels within the system. The system did perform very well last night,” he said at a media briefing Saturday afternoon.
The plant, with two pumps installed and in automatic mode, did see an increase in flow, but they performed exceptionally well, said Matson.
“We are slightly elevated in terms of flow through the plants. That is normal after rainstorms as we experienced last night and we are currently treating about 80 megalitres per day,” he said.
City crews were working on reinstalling a third pump Saturday with the hopes of having it operational by Monday of next week.
With the province declaring the city and surrounding areas a disaster area Friday through the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance program, the next step in the process is to appoint a disaster relief committee, which will happen at Monday’s council meeting.
The committee will be responsible for fundraising for relief for flood victims and the settlement of claims from the funds that are raised, said city clerk John Hannam.
“Once the appointment is made on Monday night, we’ll be getting the committee together as early as we can next week so they can begin to work on those tasks,” he said, adding the committee will also be dealing with providing immediate relief for flood victims as well as planning for the full-blown claim process.
Residents affected by the flooding are urged to document the damage to their homes and keep track of invoices.
City manager Tim Commisso said the city hopes to confirm tomorrow the start-up of city facilities for Monday.
The city is also looking to announce the dates for the next public meetings on Monday.
Commisso also said with the no bag limit for garbage pickup, intended for people affected by flooding, the city has seen double the amount of waste compared to this week last year.
“It just tells you how much damage there’s been,” he said.
