The Curbs of West Rockcliffe: What's Really in Those Piles, and Why They're There
By Peter Karwacki
If you drove through parts of this city in the days after Canada Day, you saw it: mattresses, drywall, carpet, kids' toy bins, family photo boxes, stacked at the curb in numbers that look almost apocalyptic. The instinct — mine included, at first — is to ask why so much of it can't just be cleaned. It looks like waste for waste's sake.
It isn't. And understanding why matters, because the answer points straight back to an infrastructure decision this city has been deferring for decades, and Ward 13 sits near the top of the list of wards still paying for it.
What actually happened
On July 1, Environment Canada recorded 118 millimetres of rain falling on Ottawa in under two hours — smashing the previous July 1 record of 58.9 mm set in 1959, and marking what Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called one of the worst flooding events the city has seen in 25 years. The initial count of flooded basements was roughly 1,900. Within days that number had climbed past 3,200, and by the most recent city update it stood above 4,500 — more than double the property damage of the 2019 Ottawa River flood, according to the mayor's own comparison. The city has since waived landfill fees for flood-affected residents and lifted the usual three-item curbside collection limit so people can get ruined belongings out of their homes faster.
That's the scale. Now the question worth asking as a matter of policy, not just cleanup logistics: why is so much of it unsalvageable?
The stuff at the curb isn't "waste for waste's sake" — it's a public health classification
Flood remediation standards divide water into three categories, and the category determines what can be saved. Category 1 is clean water — a burst supply line, rain through a window. Category 2 is "grey water," with some contamination. Category 3 — "black water" — is water that has mixed with sewage, or floodwater that has run across streets, lawns, and storm drains before entering a home. Industry and public health guidance treat all of it the same way once it's Category 3: it carries bacteria like E. coli and salmonella, viruses including Hepatitis A and norovirus, and parasites such as giardia.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control's disaster cleanup guidance is explicit on the consequence: drywall and insulation contaminated by sewage or floodwater should be removed and discarded, while non-porous materials — flooring, concrete, metal and wood furniture, countertops — can be cleaned and kept. The industry's own IICRC S500 standard goes further: porous materials such as carpet, padding, drywall, and insulation that have been saturated by Category 3 water cannot be salvaged, full stop, regardless of how thoroughly they're cleaned afterward. The reason is structural, not squeamish — these materials absorb contamination into their fibers in a way that surface disinfection can't reach. On top of that, EPA and industrial hygiene guidance holds that porous materials need to dry out within 24 to 48 hours or mold takes hold, and most flooded households simply don't have industrial dehumidification on hand in that window.
So a mattress or a box of childhood keepsakes at the curb isn't a homeowner overreacting. It's what every recognized health and remediation standard says has to happen once black water gets into a basement.
Which brings us to the actual accountability question
Not every flooded basement in this city is a black-water event. Whether it is depends on what kind of sewer sits under the street — and that is a documented, mappable fact about Ottawa's infrastructure, not a mystery.
The City's own Ottawa River Action Plan materials confirm that roughly 60 percent of the city's original combined sewer area has been separated into distinct sanitary and storm systems — but West Rockcliffe and Manor Park, both inside Ward 13, are named specifically among the largest remaining areas that have not been separated. In a combined system, sanitary laterals, foundation drains, and storm catch basins all still run into a single pipe. When that pipe surcharges in a storm like the one on July 1, what comes up through the floor drain isn't clean rainwater. It's the same pipe that carries sewage.
That is the difference between a basement full of water you can pump out and clean, and a basement full of contents you're legally and medically advised to throw away.
This isn't a new problem the storm revealed. It's a known, named, mapped gap in the city's sewer separation program that residents of West Rockcliffe and Manor Park have been living inside for years, and that this storm simply made visible to everyone else. When councillors talk about compassionate grants and waived landfill fees in the aftermath, that's disaster response. It is not the same conversation as why these specific streets are still on a combined system in 2026, or where they sit on the separation timeline going forward. One is charity. The other is capital planning — and capital planning is a council decision, made or deferred year over year, that this ward's representative either pushed on or didn't.
I intend to find out which.
A closing note on climate, and what residents can do now
It's worth saying plainly: this storm fits a pattern, not an anomaly. The City's own Climate Resiliency Strategy projects more frequent and more intense rainfall for the National Capital Region as the climate warms, including events that overwhelm sewer systems built for an older rainfall standard. That's consistent with the national picture — Environment and Climate Change Canada research has found that extreme rainfall events across the country have already become more frequent and more severe due to human-caused warming, and that trend is expected to continue. None of that changes who's responsible for the pipes under the street. But it does mean storms of this size are no longer the rare exception city infrastructure planning can treat as a once-in-a-generation event.
That's a reason for faster infrastructure investment, not a substitute for it — but while the sewer separation timeline plays out, there are things residents can do on their own property to reduce risk in the meantime:
- Install or upgrade a sump pump, ideally with a battery backup, since power failures often accompany the storms that cause flooding in the first place.
- Install a backwater valve on your sanitary lateral if you don't already have one — this is the single most effective device for stopping sewage from backing up into a basement during a surcharge event, and it's often the missing piece in older homes.
- Improve grading and drainage around your foundation — downspout extensions, regrading soil away from the house, and clearing window wells and catch basins are inexpensive and reduce the volume of water reaching your foundation in the first place.
- Check whether you're eligible for the City's Residential Protective Plumbing Program, which offers grants toward the cost of sump pumps, backwater valves, and related protective plumbing work.
None of this is a substitute for fixing the pipe under the street. But until that work is done in West Rockcliffe and Manor Park, it's the most effective thing a homeowner can do to keep the next storm out of their basement.
Please carefully consider who you want to plan for the future emergencies. Choose somebody who can think clearly under pressure and will not quit.
Vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe
WHAT DOES EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS LOOK LIKE GOING FORWARD?
This time around, inform yourselves,
vote differently, vote wisely.
Vote for Peter Karwacki for
Rideau Rockcliffe.
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