When the Lauderdale neighbourhood’s Grand Trunk Off-Leash Dog Park is finished its dry pond overhaul, dogwalkers will still be able to walk their pooches there.<\/p>\n
Except in big storm events.<\/p>\n
The Lauderdale Flood Mitigation Project is expected to reduce the risk of flooding in area neighbourhoods, part of a massive effort by Epcor’s Stormwater Integrated Resource Plan to reduce flooding risk in Edmonton neighbourhoods \u2014 all part of a council-approved 20-year, $1.6-billion effort laid out in 2019.<\/p>\n
Craig Bonneville is group vice-president of planning projects and engineering for Epcor Water Services. He said the city’s 100 dry ponds took on water when stormwater systems got inundated from long-duration soaker events in June, and short, high-intensity storms of July left the ground sodden.<\/p>\n
“That affects how our stormwater system is able to recover and prepare for the next storm event,” Bonneville said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen numerous dry ponds throughout the city activate and partially fill and then drain down as a result of those events, and that helps protect the communities from flooding.<\/p>\n
“The level comes up in the pipes, it spills over to the dry pond, and then once the level comes back down in those same pipes, the dry pond will drain back into them,” Bonneville said.<\/p>\n
Stormwater pipes convey the outflow water to urban creeks or the North Saskatchewan River.<\/p>\n
Edmonton even has soccer fields built in dry ponds. Recent dry pond constructions have averaged around 30,000 cubic metres, Bonneville \u00a0said.<\/p>\n
Most (permanently) wet ponds in the city of Edmonton have the same function.<\/p>\n
Other tools are used as well.<\/p>\n
“We’re also putting in a lot of what we call green infrastructure or low-impact development in mature neighborhoods that also help manage stormwater, and we do look at the pipe capacity in those areas as well to make sure they’re sized appropriately,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So in certain areas, we do know we have a bit of a heightened flood risk.”<\/p>\n
Drainage is no small matter.<\/p>\n
EPCOR halted a culvert improvement project at 137 Avenue between 199 Street and Starling Drive in 2024 when road plans changed.<\/p>\n
Recent record rain drainage into Horsehoe Creek gouged a 12-metre gorge and collapsed the bridge, severing half the communities’ links to the rest of Edmonton.<\/p>\n
The collapse left just one way in and out for thousands of residents of newer neighbourhoods outside the Henday ring, like Starling, Trumpeter, and Hawks Ridge.<\/p>\n
Instant water feature<\/p>\n
When a lake sprang up in a basin-like dry pond in St. Albert’s Erin Ridge Eastgate neighbourhood in June the carefully engineered what-if stormwater management facility was a delightful surprise for residents who suddenly lived in lakefront property \u2014 complete with an island you could kayak around.<\/p>\n
Some even got the family into bathing suits.<\/p>\n
The grassy greenspace can hold 5,100 cubic metres of water before it starts lapping at people’s rose bushes.<\/p>\n
Regan Lefebvre, senior manager of utilities and public operations for St. Albert, explained the summer’s rare usage of the pop-up lake, so different from permanently wet ponds that make up the vast majority of the city’s stormwater management facilities.<\/p>\n
A walk along the Sturgeon River in city limits would show the close observer a concrete outfall every 400 metres or so, with stormwater runoff carefully channelled through the city.<\/p>\n
But are the dry ponds, filled, safe for boating and swimming?<\/p>\n
“They are not,” Lefebvre said. “So we might have to update our signage. We don’t want people boating or swimming because there is an outfall there,” he said.<\/p>\n
What’s in the run-off water?<\/p>\n
One neighbour found a lot of mosquito larvae in a very brown bucket of water from the lake.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of fertilizer. There’s a little bit of oil. We don’t recommend swimming in it for that reason as well. There are contaminants in that water, pollutants,” Lefebvre said.<\/p>\n
In case of a rare wastewater backup event, there could even be a discharge.<\/p>\n
“In an extreme circumstance, that is an option. If we’ve got to discharge somewhere, we will discharge the sanitary to the stormwater. We didn’t have to do that through through June or July of this year. But in an extreme circumstance, if if we were to have a facility that completely failed on us, that would be something that we would consider \u2014 we would have portable pumping equipment going to the stormwater,” he said.<\/p>\n
Epcor’s Bonneville advises residents who see water levels rising in a in a dry pond, to leave the area for their own safety, as the water can come in quite quickly and also drain quite quickly. It may look placid, but there are currents and water can move swiftly.<\/p>\n
Related<\/p>\n
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