Washed out

The hamlet in Brant county on the northwest tip of the city of Brantford is called Tranquility. But for the past four years, things have been anything but.

"Tranquility is actually the name, but you wouldn't think it," chuckles 60-year-old Brant county cattleman Howard Summerhayes, brandishing a lunar-like lump of sediment retrieved from his hayfield. "Do you think you could farm that?" he thunders, holding court with a group of neighbours, reporters, and municipal and farm politicians assembled around the polished oak table in this third-generation farm dining room.

It's not the first meeting of the Summerhayes war cabinet. Since 1985, when he suffered the first flooding damage from stormwater coming from a subdivision a quarter-mile away, Summerhayes has badgered everyone from politicians to planners to pundits to the premier. He has also enlisted the support of the nearby Six Nations of the Grand River Indian reserve, which fears stormwater runoff into Fairchild Creek and the Grand River is polluting its drinking water.

With 50 cows, 125 acres, and his 87-year-old mother Isabel to cook the meals and take meticulous minutes in long hand on foolscap of his every phone call and meeting, this bachelor cattleman is on a mission to bring the developers, engineers, the conservation authority and the City of Brantford to rights for dumping stormwater on his hayfields. "We've gone through engineers like nobody's business....They just walk over us," he fumes.

Today, however, things have gone from bluster to business down in Tranquility. Summerhayes' lawyer, Donald Good, says that by early February he will take legal action on behalf of his client against two developers for damage caused to the Summerhayes property due to altering the drainage pattern.

The Summerhayes case is more than an isolated farmer versus developer battle. Research by both this dogged farmer and Farm & Country indicates that stormwater from urban development is largely unmanaged and unmonitored across Ontario. Apart from some municipalities that employ retention ponds to distill and filter stormwater into the enviroment, the general strategy is to funnel it into the environment as expeditiously as possible. Farmers, often fingered for "non-point-source" pollution, find themselves a dumping ground for urban runoff containing road salt, petrochemicals from automobiles, E. coli from dog and geese feces, and anything else urban dwellers elect to pour down their sewers.

"This is a ground-breaking case that can affect stormwater management in all of Ontario," says Summerhayes.

Photos taken on the Summerhayes property between 1995 and 1997 show washed out fields with water up to the farmer's knees, a forage harvester wallowing in water, and water spilling over a makeshift concrete berm erected to stop erosion.

Summerhayes traces his washouts back 13 years. In January 1995, the situation deteriorated after a stormwater retention pond from a subdivision two farms away was hooked into a 10-inch tile drain that eventually ran through his farm. With the January thaw, a rush of water and subsoil "full of we don't know what" blew out his tiles like an underground geyser.

The farmer says a downpour of 1G inches sends water from the estimated 1,700 acre watershed coursing above ground and below towards his farm, where it floods and silts 20 acres of productive hay land on its way to the Fairchild Creek.

"Developers have opened into our private drain, and [blown] up our tile system," says Summerhayes. "We want it repaired and we want damages.

"It's an engineering nightmare, that's what it is. Water's running east that used to run west."

As well as damaging his property, the flooding has watered down his property values, Summerhayes claims. Area land sells for "$10,000 to $30,000-plus" an acre for development, and a greenbelt land freeze comes off in 2003. But the farmer insists he's not out to cash in: "I've had lots of chances to sell. I want to live here. It's the principle of the thing."

Neighbours such as retired farmer Maurice Welton say the flooding has persisted for the past two decades as subdivisions mushroomed. When water hits soil, it's absorbed; when it hits concrete, it flies. "The more streets we get in, the more houses...that only increases the flow," Welton says.

Summerhayes' lawyer, Don Good, says legal action was the only avenue after he and his clients were repeatedly stonewalled by the City of Brantford, which, along with the Grand River Conservation Authority and various government ministries, approved the development. "Everybody's been sort of passing the buck....They're playing stupid on us," says Good, who believes the farmers have become victims of urban arrogance. "It's those sophisticated people up in the city and just dumb farmers down the line," he says sarcastically, "and why would we ever give a damn what they think?"

Good cites a court precedent in the early 1990s in Huron county when the county had to re-engineer a causeway that was creating runoff into a farmer's field. "The judge had made it pretty clear that you can't do that and there's some good case law around that you can't do that," says Good.

When reached by Farm & Country, city of Brantford engineer Alf Gretzinger is guarded. He says the city has received approvals from the Grand River Conservation Authority, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Despite heavy lobbying by Summerhayes and Good, Gretzinger insists he "can't comment on something I don't know about."

Allan Holmes, CEO of the Grand River Conservation Authority, says he is no stranger to the case and that his agency intends "to be as supportive as possible. I appreciate the frustration they've been through." With the Summerhayes lawsuit pending, GRCA as an agency that approves developments is "going to be very involved," Holmes says.

He cites a study of the Fairchild Creek watershed, measuring 400 square km, and draining 23 square km of the City of Brantford. Maps from the study indicate the vast majority of Brantford has no stormwater management.

The Conservation Authority report, however, also blames "lack of conservation tillage" and "unrestricted livestock access to streams." Summerhayes bristles at the charge that farm practices are to blame for his flooded fields.

He cites a May 1998 report, by OMAFRA soil and crop adviser Christine Brown, which concluded that increased conservation tillage and crop rotation in the area have decreased the erosion potential of the area.

Brown's report blames instead the new crop of houses: "With a change in landscape from cropped fields with potential for water infiltration to a subdivision with roof runoff and paved driveways and streets, the water volume from this source has increased significantly. With three channels coming together at one spot, it appears there is not enough capacity to handle the extra water coming from the subdivision."

Also investigating the Summerhayes flooding is the Brant County Federation of Agriculture. Onondaga dairyman Paul McLellan, with the properties committee, shakes his head over the case: "Landowners don't have the right to dump on somebody else's land, but for some reason this seems to be all right....Who's monitoring these retention ponds?"

McLellan says the flow of water could be slowed with better stormwater management at the subdivision, but instead the developer keeps building. Currently, one of two retention ponds is filled and drained with the same sized pipe. Properly sized pipes, and properly placed hickenbottom drains could slow down the post-storm rush, he believes.

Apart from blocking the flow or petitioning under the Ontario Drainage Act, legal action is the only recourse open to Summerhayes, says OMAFRA drainage co-ordinator Sid Vander Veen. The courts have clearly established that "surface water has no right of drainage....The landowner can be held liable for the damage that it creates," Vander Veen says.

"A farm drainage system is a private drainage system that's intended for the drainage of that farm only. It's not designed to accommodate any additional water and people have no right to connect to a private drainage system.

"From Howard's point of view, you get blowouts and erosion. Who's going to take care of it? They've nicely passed on the problem to him."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Stormwater creates cesspool of hazards

It's out of sight, out of mind for city dwellers, but a lot more than rainwater goes down an urban storm sewer, says Brant County agricultural and civil engineer Dave Valentine.

In a 1998 report on stormwater management, Valentine writes that human and animal feces, motor fuel and lubricants, industrial chemicals, silt, road salt, litter and debris have all been found in storm sewer effluent. Without properly designed and located retention ponds where effluent can be broken down by sunlight and aquatic plants, in the event of a downpour it is simply flushed by Mother Nature into the countryside, says Valentine.

St. George, Brant county, cash cropper Doug Burt traces three inches of clay silt on his loam soil directly to water flow from construction of a neighbouring subdivision - not to mention tires, plastic bags, pieces of insulation, and a 45-gallon plastic drum.

With a new subdivision pending, Burt, an engineer, is keeping careful waterflow and water table measurements to document any damage.

Elsewhere in the county, raw sewage, traced to improper hookup of sanitary sewage to storm sewers, was found in the Silver Birch Creek and on area farmland 18 months ago.

Natives from the Six Nations of the Grand Rivers reserve south of Brantford are worried that runoff from storm sewers and other sources is contaminating their water supply. They have enlisted some leading universities to find out, says Ken Hill, spokesman for the environmental delegations from the Six Nations Confederacy Council of Chiefs.

Hill says that after a three-day rain storm in November, the water plant in Ohsweken, the town on the reserve, ordered residents not to drink the water.

Hill suspects runoff into the Fairchild Creek, including from the Summerhayes farm, flows into the Grand River, and then into the Six Nations' water intake one km downstream.

"There really is no law for the environment. It's just up to individual developers who can do whatever they want," says Hill.

Little work has been done in monitoring the effects of urban development on stormwater flow, with the exception of the City of Waterloo Laurel Creek Watershed Monitoring Program. Civil Engineer Susan Motkaluk recently released a report on water flows in the watershed before, during and after development.

She says the Laurel Creek study found that with "strict" stormwater management guidelines for developers, peak water flows pre- and post-development were similar.

As for water quality testing, post-development, apart from some "spikes," the watershed was within allowable limits for phosphorus, E. coli, and suspended solids - silt that can carry other pollutants such as E. coli from dog, bird and even human waste. Future tests will look for salt and petrochemicals.

"Anything can be dumped into those sewers," says Motkaluk. "The municipality has very little control over that other than education.

"Without having the real proof to back up some of your fears, you're not going to have much in court."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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