Flooding of the Red Hill Creek Expressway
My first film Grass Through Concrete followed the fight of a community to stop the construction of a four lane expressway in the The Red Hill Valley in Hamilton.
The road was built, but this weekend comes a proof that some of the communities’ reasons for their opposition were not unfounded. The road was closed for 48 hrs due to flooding.
I saw this picture on facebook by Steve Featherstone
And here are some of the blog posts that people shared in the community.
http://theviewfromouthere.wordpress.com/
http://tlchamilton.blogspot.com/2009/07/paving-way-for-flooding.html
http://www.hwcn.org/link/forhv/newsletter/news02nov/news02nov_massive.htm
July 12th, 2010 at 6:08 am
I wrote a letter to Mayor Eisenberger explaining what I am certain is the hydrogeological basis for the repeated flooding. If you look at the pre expressway soil and geological maps, and if you have familiarity with the area from before the expressway was built you quickly know why it is happening. Sand and sandy soil and that acted as a sponge absorbing water. Most of that is gone now and the invisible creek that ran in the interstices of the sand grains has nowhere to flow. The visible creek was never the problem. Hate to say I told you so, in terms of the muted and unheard advice NOT to build there, but I told you so and now the fix is much more difficult than any enlarging of a drainage ditch, creek bed or concrete pipe. That isn’t the answer.
July 26th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Thank you for sharing. It very sad that the concerns that the expressway will have such effect were ignored.