SOUTH HURON — The old poem states, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again."

And so it goes for the municipality's attempts to construct a drainage project to help solve the flooding problems in the east end of Exeter.

The issue of flooding in Exeter goes back decades and the municipality has been trying for years to help alleviate the problem in the east end of town. As reported, a proposed diversion drain last year was appealed and ordered "set aside" after a provincial tribunal.

Now South Huron is making another attempt at a diversion drain for the east side of town, and council passed first and second reading of a bylaw allowing for the project at its July 19 meeting.

While the municipality now has the money to pay for the approximately $1.5 million project, it will lose $925,100 in federal-provincial grants if the project isn't finished by March 31, 2011. The remaining $574,000 is in reserves, primarily from the Exeter Community Development Fund, which is money from the former Exeter hydro, South Huron chief administrative officer Roy Hardy recently told the T-A.

Pointing to the March 31, 2011 deadline for the grants, Hardy said, "If there's an appeal, or something that takes us beyond that March 31 (deadline) then we have to go looking for money. We have identified in the budget the funds to do (the project), however that's a time-limited offer."

Should the deadline be missed, Hardy said council will have to decide where it will go from there.

"We're making our best efforts to minimize the cost to the affected property owners and we're trying to do that in an equitable way . . . This is still the most economical, efficient way of protecting our property owners and the adjacent agricultural lands."

An appeal period on assessment ends July 30, followed by a court of revision meeting
Aug. 9 at 5 p.m. in the council chambers, during which the public can discuss their assessment. South Huron clerk Michael Di Lullo said if there is no appeal, then council can give third and final reading to the drainage bylaw at the first meeting in September, meaning the project can go ahead.

Engineer Bill Dietrich was on hand at the July 19 meeting to discuss the drain, which proposes a closed drainage system starting at the Exeter/Usborne boundary at Huron Street East and traveling north through the 12th fairway of Ironwood Golf Club and finally emptying into the Ausable River.

Dietrich's report states the new system involves about 1,228 metres of sewer pipe ranging in diameter of 750 to 1,350 millimetres. The project includes the installation of six manholes, seven catch basins, an open ditch and berms and grassed buffer strips along the Exeter/Usborne boundary on lands owned by the McBride and Hamather families.

The Huron Street municipal drain will be connected into the new system, which will be designed to a "100-year storm" standard and have a 96-acre catchment area.

The estimated cost of $1,593,600 for the project includes total payment of $205,910 in allowances to the property owners on which the project will be constructed - the Hamather and McBride families and Manx Developments, owners of Ironwood.

The main difference in the current proposed project and the one that was appealed last year and "set aside" by the provincial tribunal is that an assessment schedule has been done this time, Hardy said, noting the tribunal said an assessment schedule was necessary.  

The project’s assessment has been divided into two main blocks — the total Exeter ward block lands have been assessed at $350,000, while the total Huron Street block has been assessed at $10,865. Those are the funds that would be divided by property owners in the affected areas if the grant money is lost. An assessment of $1,074,600 for roads in the Exeter ward would be paid by the municipality, Hardy said.

Interested residents packed the council chambers gallery at last week's meeting, however there were no questions or comments from the public.