Photo courtesy Michael O'Connor
With a municipal election just days away, a group of Arnprior residents are hoping a newly elected council will help them with a problem they say the town and it’s council have so far failed to deal with.
Some residents of the Riverwood Estates subdivision say they’ve been dealing with spring flooding for years that they believe is caused by massive amounts of storm water draining from the Sullivan Industrial Park directly into a narrow drainage ditch running along the City of Ottawa-owned rail line.
Resident Michael O’Connor believes the ditch doesn’t even meet specifications, and making matters worse, giant boulders that were once dumped on the 100 year old rail berm have collapsed into the ditch.
O’Connor says after years of getting nowhere with the town, the city of Ottawa and the Ministry of the Environment, some of his neighbours took matters into their own hands last spring.
O’Connor says in 2025, the ditch completely froze over and during the melt, massive amounts of water overflowed and flooded two homes on Moe Robillard, causing $60,000 damage to one home and $30,000 to another.
O’Connor says the town won’t even talk about the issue with residents anymore, perhaps because it’s complicated by the fact that the city of Ottawa owns the rail line.
Arnprior town hall has yet to respond to our request for an interview on the matter.
(Written by: Cindy Clyne)
