Organization: RiverSides Foundation
Location: Toronto, ON M4K 1W6Riverdale neighborhood, located east of the Don River ravine.
Country: Canada
Other Organizations Involved:
The collection, management and treatment of urban storm water continue to be longstanding challenges facing aquatic ecosystems, municipal governments and the residents they serve. Often, after storms, rainwater runoff from roofs and impermeable surfaces finds its way to the sewers. Approximately 35% of that urban runoff is from roofs. Because storm water runoff and sanitary sewers are only partially separated, often this rainwater mixes with sewage and overflows to ravines and streams or is directly discharged (untreated) from the treatment plant to the lake.
This can cause:
In addition, climate change is manifesting in storms that occur more frequently and with more intensity. Unfortunately, conventional solutions, like separating sanitary sewers and creating new belowground storage options are expensive to taxpayers, disruptive to residents and local businesses, and time-consuming to plan and construct.
In the past, many municipal rain barrel programs, although widespread, have proved largely ineffective. Standard residential rain barrels distributed through municipal programs or commercially available to homeowners are too small to cope with the capacity needed. In addition, rain barrels are often not emptied. Thus, they are inadequate or unprepared to capture storm water runoff when they are most needed. The RainCAP Pilot is designed to solve these persistent issues by automating the control of the rain barrel, maximizing collection capacity and collecting comprehensive data sets.
The goals of this project are to:
This project will:
The desired outcomes from this project are as follows: