BURLINGTON - A group of Burlington residents in the Headon Forest area are living in fear of every rainfall after the installation of a large grate over a nearby culvert appears to have caused flooding issues after it was installed in late 2014.
The area, which is considered by the City of Burlington to be on a floodplain, overflowed during last July’s downpours after the grate clogged with debris, leading to almost a metre of water flooding the streets and nearby homes.
Long-time residents in the area said that flooding hadn’t been an issue for the three decades they had lived there up until the grate was installed, including during the 2014 floods which occurred just before the installation.
Locals said that the flood last year caused around $400,000 in damages to a few houses on Headon Forest Drive and Headon Road alone, and residents of the area took to clearing out the grate themselves after calling both 911 and 311 during the flood. Several green transformers were submerged by the overland water, frightening residents with the possibility of the water becoming electrified.
“The fear and anxiety is through the roof,” Paul Kourie, a Burlington resident living on Headon Forest Drive, said. “People are panicking every time there's a rainfall. People should know what we’re going through so they can also be on the lookout.”
The culvert flooded again during the rain on Sunday, March 16 after moderate rainfall caused debris to clog the grate once again. It took only 30 minutes for the water level around the culvert to nearly reach street-level.
Heavy machinery has been required to clear out the blockages at the culvert, such as a backhoe used to remove the debris after the July flooding.
The residents have been in communication with the City of Burlington, including letters to Mayor Marianne Meed Ward and Ward 6 Councillor Angelo Bentivegna and delegating at city council meetings, since last year’s flood to ask them to either alter the existing grate to allow for better flow, replace the grate with one that is less likely to be clogged by floating debris or to remove the grate entirely until a permanent solution is found.
“I want to emphasize that both city staff and I have met with area residents on multiple occasions to discuss these concerns firsthand,” Bentivegna said. “The safety of the Headon Forest community and the security of residents’ property remain a top priority for everyone.”
The city has stated that they have retained an engineering consultant to design a new grate inlet for the culvert after the 2024 flood, and that a short-term modification is planned for the grate within the next few weeks, with a completely new design to be installed within the next six months to reduce blockages.
Beyond the damage done to flooded basements and vehicles, the residents in the Headon Forest area have also found that insurance companies have both increased their rates and made it more difficult to attain flood-related insurance.
“It’s harder to get insured now,” Matt Smith, another resident impacted by the flooded culvert, said. “We’re between a rock and a hard place. We could shop around but not every company will give us overland water insurance now because of the risk. This wasn’t an accidental disaster, this was one hundred per cent preventable.”
One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said that their home insurance quadrupled since the 2024 flood and that their deductibles increased by around 250 per cent.
“It’s not fair,” Kourie said. “We pay our taxes and we’re trying to cooperate, and the fact that they seem to just be waiting for it to happen again is ridiculous when they could do something about it tomorrow and have it not be a problem until they get their permanent solution in place. The stress and responsibility of the damages should not be downloaded onto the residents of this neighbourhood.”
Kourie reached out to the city after the rainfall on Sunday, March 16, to request that they clear out the matter clogging the grate once again, but found that the debris had been removed only to be left along the banks of the stream where it could be carried.
Nearly 30 residents who live along Headon Road and Headon Forest Drive are in communication anytime it rains in order to make sure someone is checking the grate for blockages throughout the rainy period.
The blocked grate has been a known issue for the city, as well. After the 2024 floods, city staff admitted that they had missed the grate while clearing out culverts ahead of the predicted storms.
“There was a miscommunication internally with respect to the grating,” Enrico Scalera, director of roads, parks and forestry at the city, said during a council meeting last November. “That grating was not cleared in advance. We are working together, intertwined departmentally, in order to ensure that does not happen again.”
Scalera also said that the Headon Forest area is an overland flooding location and stated that, regardless of whether or not the culvert had been blocked and overflowed, the neighbourhood still would have seen some overland flooding.
According to a study done last year, Burlington currently stands as the 17th most at-risk city for flooding across the province, higher than Milton, Hamilton and Guelph.