Town of Essex asks province for special flood mitigation funding after 2 floods in 3 years
CBC
The Town of Essex is lobbying the provincial government to establish a special funding stream for flood mitigation infrastructure.
This, after significant flooding in Harrow and Colchester in 2023 and a second heavy rain event in 2025.
“If the province wants a municipality to grow, we need to show that we're taking care of what's here already or we're criticized for growing,” said Mayor Sherry Bondy.
“If we go and we build new homes, [residents] will say, 'Why are you building new homes when we aren't protected already?'”
The most recent flooding occurred on Sept. 24 of last year when the Harrow region received more than 190 millimeters of rainfall in a 24-hour period, according to a report to town council authored by its director of infrastructure services.
People in the Roseborough/Centre Street area reported basement flooding; some roads were more than a foot under water and County Road 50 was closed due to flooding near Pleasure Beach Road.
Two years earlier, in August 2023, parts of Essex, Kingsville, Leamington, Lakeshore and Pelee Island all flooded due to another significant rainstorm.
That flood closed all of the town’s sports fields and parts of County Road 50 and caused basements to fill with water.
The town applied for a provincial grant in 2025 to upgrade a raw sewage pumping station in Harrow to increase its capacity and reduce the likelihood of sewer backups, town CAO Kate Giurissevich said.
But the grant was denied.
The application was filed under the health and safety water stream of the province’s Municipal Housing Infrastructure Program, which is focused on protecting communities from flooding, erosion and extreme weather events.
But the town was told there was stiff competition for the money, and other projects received priority, Giurissevich said.
She said she’d like to see the province create a stream that is more narrowly focused, perhaps strictly for flood-prone areas.
“There’s so many competing needs,” she said. “You’re going to see more uptake from other applicants and then the funds are drained faster.”
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