High, but not that high

Beechwood Wetland shows signs of inundation. Now we need another rain to wash all the muck off.

I went on a ride down the Lower Don Trail from the forks to the mouth. Most of the trail was covered in water with only a few high spots left dry. Now that the water has receded, everything is covered with a layer of mud and dirt. Beechwood, Binscarth, Helliwells Hill, Chester Springs were all inundated. The lower pond at the Brick Works was part of the river at one point.

What surprised me the most was that the lower part of the river was untouched. There was hardly any flooding south of Queen. The real bottleneck - the Lakeshore railway bridge - showed less than 25% of overflow capacity. All the flooding upstream was a result of localized overcapacity. The berm being built south of Queen would not have even being touched.

The big hope is that flooding such as was seen on Friday will be mitigated by the Wet Weather Flow Management Plan. This 25 year plan started in 2002 will make changes to source and and terminal control points so that when rain falls it doesn't all flood into the valley all at once. The only problem of course is that WWFMP only applies to Toronto. Water flowing from north of Steeles is still uncontrolled. Maybe Markham and Vaughan will be forward enough in the planning to start their own WWFMP's (ha!)