The Report

When the Environmental process started, there was some interest in the project, although the meetings were not well attended. Gradually, the Community started to grasp the projected home owner s costs for frontage and connection charges and when the preferred source of Lindsay water was announced, there was much greater rejection of the idea of municipal water.

The Background

The Consultants report advises that the annual income for Omemee is $25,857., compared to the provincial average of $35,185.00 and that the unemployment rate is 15.6%, while the provincial average is 6.1%. Several older homes are rented at a lower rate, which attracts tenants at the lower scale. Omemee is doing more than its share in providing lower cost housing.

Omemee is an agricultural community, who s population is tied to this sector, and the change to urban will be gradual at the start. Quite likely, the area south of the rail line will be 10 to 15 years before it fully develops and then development will move north of the rail line. The 18 lot subdivision in the north east is taking two years to build out.

One controlling factor, as first reported by the Consultant in their 2004 report, is that the storm sewer system will be a future growth restriction, as parts of the village are in the flood plain. For some reason, storm sewers have not been mentioned since. The new animal control building permit holdup was more about drainage.

How much growth can occur in Omemee with only one bridge over the Pigeon River on a significant Provincial highway?

The whole spin and a great deal of engineering effort was made to justify the most capital expensive and front end loaded recommendation and far less effort was made on alternative solutions.

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Water Taste

In response to the question as to why Lindsay s water has a disagreeable taste, the Consultant advised that taste starts with the source, which is not an answer. Lake Scugog is a large, slow moving, weedy man-made lake that may average four feet in depth. As a comparison, Port Perry, located right on Lake Scugog has three drilled wells south of the village that supply 1.5m gallon a day as its source to service 6,500 residents. Also, there W.P. C.P. servicing about 6,000 people, discharges into the quite small Nonquon River and likely now, a growth restriction with a 6,000 population on the system.

It is known that a brown field south of Mary Street in Lindsay was used for about 60 years as a munitions factory and the area drains into the Scugog above the intake. The Mariposa drain will drain wide farming area, as well as be adjacent to a former sanitary land fill site, discharging above the intake. The Scugog River passes by two cemeteries above the intake. The Sediment & Biological Investigation of the Scugog River, shows that the River has a high level of pollution and it just doesn t all start in Lindsay. The taste is likely caused by a high level of algae, but the river has other problems.

The City of Kawartha Lakes is proposing to sell a product that for some unexplained reason, does not taste as good as the product that Omemee residents now have, to a high unemployed area, at about $5,000.00 per home. The 100 odd homes presently without sewers, will see their costs double.

Rail Trail

The proposal calls for the City to either purchase or enter into an agreement with the Ontario Realty Corporation to obtain an utility easement along the old railroad right of way, between Lindsay and Omemee at a distance of 16 kilometers. No mention is made of the easterly 12 kilometers from Omemee which contains a wooden bridge over the Pigeon River of about 120 feet and a 400 feet long, 75 feet high steel structure north of Cottingham.

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The report details the required fencing on both sides of the west section with repairs and replacements costing $440,000.00. This will pit neighbour against neighbour on who gets what and the City of Kawartha Lakes will be caught in the middle. The landscape contractor suggests that a new fence would be beneficial, but no estimate was given. Fence costs are to be charged to Parks, Recreation & Culture, which makes them a general expense and not in any of these sewer and water estimates. No estimate is supplied of annual maintenance, which would counteract some operating sewer and water estimates in this report.

The Peterborough Rotary Club provided funds for the two bridges decking and barriers east of Omemee as well as various control posts, but nothing on fencing. The Ontario Realty Corporation would likely be happy to download responsibility and liability of the whole trail to the City of Kawartha Lakes.

Walkers and bicycle use is generally acceptable, but snowmobile cleats are causing havoc with the 500 feet of new bridge decking making it difficult for walking and bicycles and adding considerable to maintenance. Council knows the difficulty of multiple use.

Omemee has housing on both sides of the trail. Trail improvements could create a motorized speedway from Lindsay to Peterborough and back, causing noise and pollution. The proposed official plan calls for higher density just north of the trail and east of Sturgeon Road, as well as adjacent housing by the trail on the Regal property. Allowing motorized use means that the official plan should be revisited.

Private interests through sponsorship funds may provide for capital and maintenance, however, sometimes private interests do not have the staying power to stay with a project and the municipality has to pick up the ball.

Work on the trail would be on 25 feet on one side of the rail bed with sewer and water 8 feet apart, therefore there would be considerable soil disruption. Also considerable brushing is required. Is an environmental assessment required for the effect of this construction on an old Railroad line next to farms and the food chain?

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The use of the trail may seem appropriate from an engineering point of view, but raises the following questions:

1. If only an easement is required, why spend $440,000.00 for fencing on both sides? Is the municipality being led along to be involved in the trail? Is it politically acceptable to spend public money on private fences?

2. How do you treat future fence repairs that did not just meet fence repair needs in this project? Are those on the east side being treated the same?

3. Is Environmental Assessment required for extensive disruption of an old railway bed?

4. Who will control the use of the trail, provide policing, structural improvements for 100 year old bridges, capital improvements and liability insurance?

5. Will zoning adjacent to the Trial need to be changed because of noise and pollution? Do you want a house next to the trail?

6. Any forcemain breakages on the trail would likely be slower to being discovered because of less traffic than mains on a road allowance. It would be more difficult for a truck and big equipment to have access and to make repairs on the rail traveled portion, barely 15 feet wide.

The above issues are not addressed in this report. The Trail will be a bigger liability than an asset.

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Sewers This report is slightly different than the report for the public meeting, as the City

is a different audience. It reflects some of the public input, but the main thrust is the same.

Our first report promoted a new W.P.C.P. North of Beaver Trailer Park with a gravity main trunk parallel to the River to the rail line just west of the River. With the Sturgeon River Street Pumping Station about 6 feet higher than the Church Street Pumping Station because of the mill pond dam and only 1500 feet apart, it was felt that the Sturgeon Street Pumping Station could flow by gravity to the lowest pumping station in the Village. It would take some effort but one larger, lower pumping station would reduce some capital and long term maintenance. This would have also eliminated a future Beaver-Pigeon Pumping Station. Lindsay got rid of their downtown pumping station and Sturgeon Street Pumping Station within a block of the four corners has been a nuisance. New land costs were justified by the cost of private fences being not required. The grade and the flow of the river and an entirely new W.P.C.P. location may cause Environmental assessment problems.

A Lagoon W.P.C.P. location would not require land and an Environmental assessment would be only changing a lagoon to a sewer plant at the same location. In regard to the concerns of discharging the treated product into the River, one wonders why it cannot be recycled by using one of the lagoons as a holding site. If it is clean enough for the river, it should be clean enough for land.

The City owns the 70 acre lagoon site and a 100 acre unopened adjacent gravel pit and the treated water could be used for washing gravel. Try to develop a recycling use for treated effluent rather than river discharge. If the treated water holding ability didn t match volume and outside uses, then discharge to the river in the existing outflow pipe could occur when the river volume is highest. The Church Street Pumping Station could pump to the Sturgeon Road forcemain just as easy as the Sturgeon Street Pumping Station.

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We are a City of Lakes and this would demonstrate that the municipality is concerned about how our lakes are treated. The approach should show to the Provincial authorities that the City is trying to take advantage of a treated water supply in an unique way. It falls into an environmental friendly approach that should fit the current trend. Catch the Kawartha Spirit!

K.P.O.W. were quite critical of the Consultant s present standard design of

W.P.C.P. plants and talked about more automated and newer designs. We got literature on ZENON equipment, but since you have a facility in Fenelon Falls of theirs, the O.B.C.I.A. does not wish to make any comment.

Advantages

1. Eliminates the lagoon pumping station and 15.6K of forcemain to Lindsay. Toronto has found that over time, the more pipes in the ground, you increase maintenance and replacement costs, while this report looks mainly at plant costs.

2. You remove K.P.O.W. objection to any additional waste being transported to Lindsay with additional by-product being discharged into the already severally polluted Scugog River.

3. It reserves more capacity in Lindsay as Provincial Policy requires more housing density in urban areas like Lindsay resulting in more treatment capabilities.

4. If development in Oakwood gets into sewer trouble in the future, the only answer may be to pump to Lindsay as there is no river outlet.

5. When combined with the water suggestion, it allows council to make any decision on the rail trail on its merits only.

6. Expanding the existing plant was the cheapest proposal and other possible savings have been suggested.

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The Environmental assessment wanted public input, but Professionals don t like laymen questioning their professional opinion. Sometimes fresh thinking is helpful, as they may get locked into one solution.

Cost Comparison

When comparing the costs for the three alternative solutions reported in the Information Centre report dated September 27, 2006 with these final estimates you learn that both a new Omemee plant and an expanded existing Omemee plan had their costs reduced by $460,000.00 each while the proposed Lindsay plan preferred option had costs reduced by $2,070,000.00. If engineers could reduce costs estimates by this much from a prior public meeting, you would think they would be happy to explain the difference.

The report is justified by the engineers on reduced plant operation costs over 20 years. The proposed costs for plant operation seem high, but the City of Kawartha Lakes has most of the cards to play as to how costs are allocated. Council should require extensive breakdowns on this item. After any of the works are constructed and if savings don t occur, who will know and what can be done about it?

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