Wilket Creek: Troubled Watercourse

Map of Wilket Creek (click to enlarge)

Wilket Creek is a tributary of the Don River. Its headwaters (now buried) were once in the Willowdale and Sheppard area of North York. It appears above ground northwest of Bayview and York Mills and continues open until it joins the West Don River near Leslie and Eglinton Avenue East. Except for a short section just north of Lawrence Avenue East the creek travels through public parks. There are two ponds, one in Windfields Park and the other in Edwards Gardens. Both are manmade and kept in place by small dams. The most well known section is the Wilket Creek ravine that runs between Edwards Gardens and the Don River. This section is also the most problematic and in recent years has been hit hard by flooding.

Recently signs have appeared at the entrances to the Wilket Creek ravine. The signs talk about the start of a geomorphic assessment of the creek. In lay person's language they are going to study the way water flows through the river channel and why flooding is causing damage to the trails and bridges.

The Toronto Region Conservation Authority put the study out to tender and a local company called Parish Geomorphic won the bid. They will study the creek and make recommendations for improvements. For all this they will be paid about $300,000. This may sound like a lot of money but it you want scientific expertise it costs money. Parish did a similar study on Burke Brook a little upstream so they have local experience.

The study will map out the creek in detail and will describe physical conditions of the creek bed and underlying soils. It will also map the natural water input as well as the manmade stormwater sewers that feed into the creek. It is the latter that is the main culprit for flooding. Most of the water that falls on the surrounding neigbourhoods ends up in the creek. When it rains heavily this is a lot of water. In August 2005, July 2008, and July 2009 there was so much water flowing in the creek that it destroyed the pedestrian bridges and obliterated the walking path through the ravine.


Woody debris choking river channel under a bridge in July, 2008


Winter 2009. Note the wide channel and scoured banks

It's a well known fact that too much water is flowing through Wilket Creek during storms. I'm a little puzzled by the need for a full blown study and I can't see that they are going to come up with anything really new. Basically what they will find is that Wilket Creek is a typical urban stream with several storm sewers that can dump large amounts of stormwater into the creek very quickly. All this water overwhelms the creek and the fast water overflows its small channel. The small pedestrian bridges and the cheap asphalt paths are no match for all this water and are easily damaged.

There's an easy sounding solution for all this - reduce the stormwater flows into the creek. Remove the excess water and the problem is solved. Unfortunately, diverting the stormwater means very expensive underground diversion to storage tanks and pipes. Building this will take considerable finances and political will.

So perhaps the purpose of the study is to give someone sufficient reason to build these systems. In order to spend millions of dollars on vital infrastructure you need an expensive study done by a reputed company and not just the opinions of concerned volunteer citizens who know the area but don't have the credentials to back them up.


Sign posted at mouth of Wilket Creek

Fall Scenes

A sumac grove in Earl Bales Park showing its bright red colour

Fall is one of my favourite times for walking and bicycling in the Don. The weather is moderate and the irritating bugs are few. Not only that but the colours along the ravine slopes are beautiful at this time of the year.

There are several places in the Don where you can see good vistas. Besides the places mentioned in these photos you can also visit Sunnybrook Park, Moccasin Trail Park and the East Don Parklands.


Yellows and Oranges showing in E.T. Seton Park


More colours in Crothers' Woods

311 and the Don

Tree down across path in Moore Park Ravine

One of the big problems with the Toronto's city bureaucracy is that is, well, big. There are approximately 50,000 employees doing a multitude of tasks that keep the city running smoothly (more or less). There is a raft of divisions and departments from Parks and Recreation to Culture, Social Services, Transportation, to name a few. Each of these divisions are subdivided in complex ways that make them labyrinthine and hard to connect. In addition there is not enough communication between them which makes some tasks even more difficult. I have heard these divisions describes as silos, an apt description.

Unfortunately for the Don, many of these departments have some responsibility tied to the Don Valley for different aspects of the valley. For example, Transportation deals with the Don Valley Parkway, Works deals with sewers and water, Culture deals with relics such as the Don Valley Brick Works, and Social Services deals with the homeless. Not the least of which is Parks, Forestry and Recreation which has maybe the largest responsibility. Even within Parks it is sometimes difficult to find who is responsible for something because of geography. The Don River acts as a natural border for jurisdictions. There might be two different park supervisors responsible for the west and east banks of the river. Not only that but these people are often moved periodically which makes it even more difficult to get in touch with someone.

In comes the 311 call centre. Now with a simple phone call or email, the call centre can direct your query to the right department or person in order to solve a problem. As an example, in August I came across a tree fallen down over the path in the Mud Creek ravine. I took a picture of the situation and sent it with an email to 311 describing where it was and that it should be removed. A couple of weeks later, I went back and it was cleared away.

This is just to let you know, you can do the same. For simple things like a tree fallen down or garbage dumped in a park a call or an email to 311 is all it takes. If you do make a call, be sure to get a reference number. That way you can follow up with your request to see what action is being taken.


Same place a few weeks later


The tree in question

Fuel Spill in the Don

Map of fuel tank location and nearby stormwater outlet on Don River

On Sunday a fuel spill occurred that emptied into the Don River. What happened was that a construction crew excavating behind a Staples depot on Vanderhoof Avenue uncovered a large fuel tank buried in the ground. No one knew it existed but local historians suspect that it was a leftover relic from the days when the site was used as an airfield. The Leaside Aerodrome closed in the 1930s but they left the tank buried in the ground, forgotten until now.

In the process of digging up the tank it was ruptured and the contents exposed to the air. It was scheduled to be pumped out on Monday but a torrential downpour on Sunday caused the fuel to flow out of the tank. The fuel emptied into a nearby sewer which quickly led to a storm sewer outlet on the Don River. Fortunately a passerby noticed the problem and the spill was quickly contained. Today as I was passing by I saw the cleanup efforts well underway.

Many people assume that the Don is polluted and they are right. It used to be that the problems came from industrial sources like this but those days are long gone and spills are few and far between. Most of the pollution comes from stormwater runoff. Whenever there is a big rainfall (like this weekend), the rain is quickly diverted into storm sewers which empty directly into the river. The rain picks up detritus from our roads and lawns. In addition, in the Lower Don sanitary sewage mixes with storm water and the combined effluent adds to the rainwater runoff.

If there is any benefit to this fuel spill it is that it highlights the connection between the sewer grate on your street and pollution in the Don River. Think about that next time you want to soap down your car in the driveway. Now you know where that soapy water will end up!



Backhoe lifting derelict fuel tank


Workers in Don River putting a boom in place to contain the spill


Closeup of the stormwater outlet. You can see some of the oily slick on top of the water.


Tanker trucks being used to vacuum up the oil

New Road for the Don

Access road under construction

If you've passed by the mouth of Taylor-Massey Creek recently you will have noticed a considerable amount of construction activity. In addition to the sewer project that is taking up part of the parking lot in Taylor Creek Park there is also another related project occurring on the north side of the creek. Toronto Water is busy blazing a new road up the East Don (see map). The purpose of this road is to allow them to access to maintenance wells so that they can access a sewer that runs through the East Don ravine. The sewer was built in the 1960s when the city was more concerned about building things than about natural spaces.

The sewer which is now about 50 years old requires some monitoring and possible maintenance. In order to inspect the sewer they need to lower a camera mounted on a robot into the sewer so they can look inside. The monitoring equipment and the robot are quite substantial thus a road is required to get it to the access grates.

The road is following the path of an old construction road laid down by the TRCA in 1999 so that they could do some slope remediation. The new road will go past the slope and extend another 400m east alongside the river.

Eventually the road will be used by Parks to establish a trail through the Charles Sauriol Preserve that will link up with parks further north such as Milne Hollow and Moccasin Trail.


Restored part of old construction road. New armour stone is on right, river is on the left


Another section showing riprap lining bank


Some of the construction vehicles parked in the staging area just north of Taylor-Massey Creek

First Resident of the Don

Groundhog spotted at Lakeshore Blvd. East and Don Roadway

I was going by the mouth of the river last week just where Lakeshore Blvd. East crosses the river at the Don Roadway. Immediately south of the bridge the Don River enters the Keating Channel. Just at the southwest corner of the intersection I spotted a groundhog (Marmota monax) coming out of a hole from underneath the bridge abutment.

There is a bit of debate whether the Don River ends here or whether the mouth is actually where the Keating Channel enters the harbour west of Cherry Street. The effects of the harbour and the lake water actually extends further up the channel to around Eastern Avenue. To my mind the Keating Channel right turn elbow demarcates the end of the river. Therefore this groundhog would be living in the place closest to the mouth of the river.

I've seen groundhogs in several places in the Don Valley. They are a pretty common species and have adapted to urban conditions. Groundhogs are herbivores so I guess the grassy roadside next to the Don Roadway makes for some pretty easy living. This one was pretty nonchalant and sat by his hole watching me for 10 minutes as I snapped several pictures. As I fiddled with my camera looking for the video setting, it scurried into its den so I only have a few still photos from the encounter.