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This Mississauga stormwater management program's main
concept is bio-retention.
We've really got to control run-off and make sure that
it doesn't purge and overflow the underground water systems
and the rivers and the channels in and of itself.
We completed a study in 2007 that identified that urban
stormwater management was the biggest single issue that
we needed to deal with in protecting the water resources
of the Credit River and Lake Ontario.
Allow nature to hold some of this water as a sponge
as opposed to big expensive capital infrastructure.
The road was designed so all the drainage comes
from North to South.
Any sheet flow comes across the road itself into the catch bases
here or through the permeable pavers of the parking lay-bys
or sidewalk and then down through a series of technology
into the rain gardens.
So you have a treatment train, multiple technologies in series.
Almost all of the water is contained here rather than
out to the Cooksville Creek.
Any water that does go back into the water table is much cleaner.
We estimated for the two-year storm event that we would get
a 37% reduction in flow, but we're actually seeing more like
a 70 to 80 percent reduction.
We're seeing very high removal efficiencies,
anywhere up to 99 percent of pollutants such as metals,
total suspended solids, nutrients - which are parameters
of concern to our watershed, to Cooksville Creek,
Lake Ontario - our drinking supply for 8.6 million people.
We really want to look at our design of roads in the future
so that we can implement these LID (Local Infrastructure
Development) features and really have a positive impact
on the environment and drainage as a whole.
Without the leadership of the city,
the CVC (Credit Valley Conservation),
I don't think it would have come about.
It would have been very easy to say,
no we can't do these things in a road right of way,
because we've got so many other utilities.
It's so affordable.
It speaks to the future and how we can address it.
It will have applications throughout the whole city,
the whole region and all of Canada,
and dare I say the World.