Insurance guys mad about poor sewers
Insurance companies are pushing the city to do something to fix the insufficient sewer systems that overflow in various parts of town when we get the kind of hard downpour we’ve seen already twice this summer. (Implied here is that the hard-headed insurance business accepts that climate change is a fact.)
Ephraim 16:48 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
There are essentially two solutions to this. In the end, we all pay for it… either the city can fix it and the premiums remain the same while our tax money is used for this. Or the city can refuse to pay to fix the problem and premiums will eventually go up. Of course, eventually the city will need to fix it but if they wait too long the premiums will have gone up and we will end up paying for the increase on both sides.
Montreal has been having these downpours for over 25 years. Remember the River Decarie Expressway? Lac Lacadie Circle? Are the sewers slower than before or there just no overload system?
Kate 18:07 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
The L’Acadie circle only got bad after the reconstruction in 2004 that didn’t take into account how the new structure interacted with the old sewer system underneath it. At any rate I don’t recall it was notorious for filling up before it reopened that year.
I think there are lots of reasons sewers are a problem now.
– Everything is older and more worn out than it was 25 years ago.
– The city’s on a hill so some parts of town are bound to be affected worse than others.
– I read a description recently about the awful effects a downpour can have on Crescent Street bar bathrooms. When Crescent was first built up, the sewers put in were meant for low-density residential buildings, which are still there behind the glitzy bar frontages. They were never meant to cope with the quantity of beer piss and other unmentionables they get daily, let alone adding a torrential downpour.
– Applies also to the sewers on Sherbrooke Street and other parts of town originally built up to be low-density residential areas 100 years ago but that now host big office towers, busy businesses or other bathroom-heavy institutions, without the corresponding upgrades under the street. (Residents in lower NDG near Vendome metro are concerned about the MUHC hospital and what it might do to their sewer system for similar reasons. As far as I know, the question has not yet been answered.)
– In general, more people living here and going to the bathroom, basically.
– We always had the risk of floods in the lower areas of town. The old pumping station under the bridge and the other one near Mill Street were built because this is an island and we have a dynamic and sometimes not very convenient relationship with water. Here, here and here are three examples of what I mean, found with a single Google search.
Chris 18:34 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
We should pay for water by litre. This will encourage conservation and thus reduce the water flowing through the system. That ought to help a bit, and would be cheaper than digging up every street.
Kate 18:38 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
Or we could hold it in.
Ephraim 19:12 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
The sewers on Laurentian (Marcel-Laurin) between Henri-Bourassa and Louisbourg were famous for filling. Montreal has had a lot of sudden rain.
Some of the sewers in the Plateau are actually brick and others are actually wood, that’s how old they are. But the city always patchworks things and well, we know the results of patchwork. 50 years later and you can still tell where the tramlines used to run, you see the parallel cracks in the asphalt every year. (I do wonder if sandless asphalt might be better for the city, but worry that it would be more problematic in the winter.)
Robert H 19:31 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
Depuis des décennies, les écologues et les météorologues tentent de nous prévenir que les changements climatique viendront, mais leurs affirmations etaient écartés comme les bêtises paranoïaque. Maintenant que les changements sont venus, c’est le tour des compagnies d’assurances de nous rappeler qu’il y aura les conséquences pour notre environnement et nos poches. Quand l’argent parle, on écoute.
Kate 23:22 on 2012/06/10 Permalink
Tu l’as dit, bouffi.