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North Niagara residents are receiving huge hydro bills as a result of cleanup efforts from recent flooding. <\/p>\n
After historic flooding in July and August, households ran industrial-sized dehumidifiers, powerful fans, sump pumps and other equipment to dry their homes. That devoured vast amounts of electricity, and now many residents are getting hydro bill sticker shock.<\/p>\n
Coun. Kevin Townsend said he’s received “a lot” of phone calls from residents whose hydro bills have tripled or quadrupled.<\/p>\n
“I had one senior call me in tears,” he told Monday’s City of St. Catherines Council meeting, which dealt with flooding issues. <\/p>\n
“Her bill went up to $360. Her bill was usually between $50 and $80 a month,” Townsend said, adding that the woman would struggle to pay it. <\/p>\n
City asks energy board for flood relief<\/p>\n
Council unanimously backed Townsend’s resolution calling for the Ontario Energy Board to provide flood relief for residents who can demonstrate a substantial increase in hydro usage due to flooding.<\/p>\n
The resolution asked the energy board to work with local hydro utilities to identify a way to provide relief.<\/p>\n
Elevated hydro charges were incurred through no fault of households already facing substantial costs to repair their homes, the resolution noted. <\/p>\n
City officials hope the province will provide financial relief for millions in flood-related costs.<\/p>\n
The city is preparing a claim under the provincial Municipal Disaster Assistance Program, according to a report to council.<\/p>\n
That program helps municipalities recover from “extraordinary” costs after a natural disaster, the province says. <\/p>\n
That claim is due by Nov. 18, the report said.<\/p>\n
The city paid $1.2 million for enhanced collection of flood-ruined household items at the curb, and will pay about the same amount for emergency repairs to stabilize a slope in Port Dalhousie, the report noted.<\/p>\n
In August, the city diverted $20 million from different program accounts to a new Emergency Flood Alleviation Program designed to reimburse eligible homeowners for 90 per cent of the cost (up to $5,000) of eligible flood protection devices, such as backflow valves that stop sewage from backing up into homes.<\/p>\n
That was necessary because since the storms the city has received more than 3,500 applications through its flood alleviation program. The program previously supported about 30 applicants a year, with an annual budget of $150,000, the city said.<\/p>\n
At Monday’s meeting, city council approved terms of reference for an expert panel to study the recent flooding and develop an action plan. Staff can now begin recruiting experts to join it. <\/p>\n
“That process is moving forward as quickly as we can move it forward,” St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe said.<\/p>\n
Failed retaining wall threatened Dalhousie House<\/p>\n
Council also approved more than $600,000 of $1.2 million needed to stabilize a slope in Port Dalhousie.<\/p>\n
The work is needed to address a catastrophic failure of a retaining wall on Canal Street, according to a report by Chris Anders, manager of linear infrastructure operations for the city.<\/p>\n
Some homes had to be evacuated, and the retaining wall risked falling into historic Dalhousie House, he said.<\/p>\n
Staff will be meeting with people affected by the evacuations to inform them of the next steps, Anders said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-901991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}