Rennies River Flood Mitigation

The consultation has concluded and a What We Heard document is available here.

The Rennies River Catchment Stormwater Management Plan (RRCSMP) was completed in 2014. On May 26, 2014, Council Directive CD# R2014-05-26/5 recommended implementation of the recommendations below to address flooding in the area.

While the report recommended that the weir at Long Pond be given priority and the two problem areas located downstream of Long Pond be given second priority, the City has been working through the provincial environmental approval process for the Long Pond Weir Project since that time and the process is still ongoing. The most recent progress has been the issuance of a revised Environmental Preview Report Guideline (June 2020) by the Province that will require revisions and updating to the Environmental Preview Report (EPR). Based on these new EPR guidelines, a revised EPR will be required to continue the environmental review and approval process for the Long Pond Weir Project.

In 2018, the City received funding for Phase 2A under the New Building Canada Fund. The scope of work was presented to Council at Committee of the Whole on December 19, 2018. One of the concerns raised during that meeting was the potential effect of proceeding with Phase 2A flood mitigation works prior to the completion of the Long Pond Weir Project. An engineering firm was subsequently hired to undertake additional stormwater modelling to review the impact of the downstream phasing sequence in the absence of the Long Pond Weir being competed. The outcome of that was to complete various modelling scenarios where it was determined that a two-phased approach could be undertaken for the flood mitigation measures in the area downstream of Long Pond based on the timing of construction for the Long Pond Weir.

Feedback gathered through this project will be included in the City's submission to the Government of NL.