Editor:
The past few days have witnessed exceptionally high volumes of rainfall and while such occurrences are infrequent, or at least have been in the past, it has shown the inadequacy of the drainage system on the coast. Over the years the high volume of new housing has exacerbated the problem of surface water runoff, thus the capacity of the many ditches has been stretched to over the maximum.
Where driveways span over these rainwater ditches, culverts have been put in place to allow for the unrestricted flow of water. Local bylaws require homeowners to keep these culverts free of debris and plant growth to allow for the flow of rain water. By not clearing these plugged-up culverts, many ditches over the last few weeks have overflowed, resulting in rivers crossing roads and flooding properties below those ditches, which are unfortunately in the way.
There is a bylaw, yet it just doesn’t seem to be enforced. It is my understanding that it is neither Capilano Highway’s responsibility to clean them out, nor the responsibility of the municipality (Sechelt in our case). I am sure that most homeowners are not aware of this responsibility.
While I am sure that bylaw officers are kept extremely busy with many other things on their plates, it would be nice if they were able to address this issue with the rainy season now upon us.
Peter Clayden, Sechelt
