The City of Martensville is hoping to help an estimated 10 to 20 hard-hit homeowners safely dispose of excess groundwater that poses a potential public safety issue to their own and neighbouring properties.
At a city council committee of the whole meeting on Tuesday, September 14, councillors directed city administration to draft an an amendment to the municipal sump pump bylaw. The amendment, which is slated to be voted on at a future council meeting, would recognize the unique circumstances of a small number of properties that are unable to comply with the existing bylaw.
In a report to the September 14 council meeting, Martensville Infrastructure and Planning Director Matt Gruza said the issue has been ongoing for a long time.
“Over the past number of years, several properties have been identified as having sump pumps which discharge an unusually high volume of water,” stated Gruza. “This includes discharging almost continually in the spring, summer and fall, as well as discharging all winter.”
Administration has worked with property owners on a case-by-case basis in the past to permit the discharge of sump pumps onto the street where it would be carried either by curb and gutter or storm sewer out of the city and eventually into the Opimihaw Creek natural drainage system.
Recently, however, the number of complaints about sump discharge onto streets and sidewalks has increased dramatically. Gruza noted this is unusual because this was an unseasonably dry year. The cause, he suggested, is likely because of a high underground water table.
“What is unique about this situation is that it seems to affect only one or two properties on a block,” said Gruza. “The reason for this is believed to be that these properties are located where subsurface geology carries more groundwater, for example, a gravel seam, or that these particular properties have deeper basements than their neighbours, which turns them into the ‘hydraulic low point’ on the block.”
When these affected properties pump continually onto the sidewalk or street, ice buildup in colder months creates serious public safety issues.
The city’s consulting engineers have recommended the affected properties be allowed to apply for a permit to discharge their sump pumps into the sanitary sewer for the winter months.
“While this would solve the problems of ice buildup from sump discharge in the winter, it does create some other concerns in terms of liability and operating costs, as well as not addressing the issue during the summer months,” noted Gruza.
Engineers estimated that each affected property’s sump pump could be discharging approximately 1,000 litres, or one cubic meter, of water per day. This translates into 365 cubic meters, or 365,000 litres, per year. Allowing this additional drainage into the city’s sanitary sewer system, and eventually into the municipal lagoon, would cost between $13,250 and $26,500, per property, annually.
Councillors agreed that an amendment to the sump pump bylaw should include a ‘permit system’ for affected homeowners, which would be implemented on a case-by-case basis, with the additional cost of pumping the discharge into the sanitary sewer system year-round shared between the city and the homeowner.
“It’s both a community problem and an individual homeowner problem,” said Martensville Mayor Kent Muench in an interview following the September 14 meeting. “The original bylaw was implemented in about 2008 because many people were putting their groundwater into the sanitary sewer system, and that was filling up the lagoon. It’s a community problem because the lagoon is currently at capacity and we need to expand it.”
Muench noted that the issue of continuous discharge onto city property is confined to a small number of properties in mature neighbourhoods. New areas of the city have efficient storm sewer and surface reservoir drainage systems.
“We’re talking about very specific areas where the property owner has no other option than to discharge into the sanitary sewer system,” said Muench. “A permit system, with an annual fee, is preferable to continual water and ice buildup on public streets and sidewalks.”