December, 2008
February, 2009
If you've been in Crothers' Woods recently you may have noticed some construction activity that has recently started up. This project has the wordy name Rosemount Heights Combined Sewer and Siphon Replacement. This project has been on the city's planning roster for several years. Its basic goals are to replace a deteriorating pipe that currently goes underneath the Don River and to provide increased capacity for the new development in the Governor's Road neighbourhood. The new sewer will be about 1m in diameter and will be connected to the North Toronto Sewage Treatment Plant.
Planned Route of Sewer. Blue=tunnel, red=cut and cover
The plan is to tunnel underneath Bayview Avenue. Then there will be a 'cut and cover' section that circles the old Sun Valley landfill. This continues to the Hydro Corridor where it will go into a second tunnel section and then link up with the treatment plant.
The project is slated to last several months and will probably wrap up sometime late summer 2009.
The Task Force to Bring Back the Don has paid close attention to this project. While we are concerned for the well being of the valley, we also realize that this is the best of some less savoury alternatives. Replacing the pipe underneath the Don River would have been more costly and would have resulted in even more disruption to the natural environment. We did have some positive impact on the project. The original plan was to go straight through the old landfill which would have disrupted our longterm goal of reforesting this area. We proposed a revised route that follows the path of an old service road that goeas around the old landfill. This was accepted and is what you now see.
Construction projects look messy but they need are certain amount of space for their work. Once it is complete, the route will be restored with native trees and shrubs. In a few years it will hardly be noticeable.
One issue I noticed with the construction site is that the access road cuts across several trails in the area. Hopefully the city can accommodate access for these trails which is well used by bikers and walkers.
I will be keeping an eye on this project and hope to provide updates as it progresses.
Another view of the construction corridor
1 comment:
Thanks for the information, much appreciated. I was worried that It might mean permanent changes to the area (it looks pretty brutal right now). I'll check again here later on. -Gerry
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