Saskatoon’s first storm pond at W.W. Ashley Park now complete

Between Lansdowne and Albert avenues and behind the J.S. Wood Library in Saskatoon’s Haultain neighbourhood, there’s what looks like a giant outdoor grass bowl, complete with huge concrete “steps” and landscaping on the sides.

It’s actually Saskatoon’s first dry storm pond in W.W. Ashley Park, one of nine storm ponds that are to be completed by 2027.

During a news conference Tuesday, Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark said the ponds are crucial to residents in low-lying areas during intense storms or rainfall events, similar to the one that hit the city’s east side on June 20.

That afternoon, streets, homes and businesses mainly on Saskatoon’s east side were flooded by a severe rainstorm that lasted several hours. Some people even had to be rescued by Good Samaritans.

“There was so much stress for these families in this neighbourhood and there are for other families in other neighbourhoods as a result of these intense rainfalls that we’re seeing that overwhelm the system,” said Clark.

The storm pond in W.W. Ashley Park. (Lara Fominoff/650 CKOM)

The storm pond, he said, was “tested” during that event.

“I got an email from (area resident) Laurie Bourgeois saying ‘It’s working!’ with a video of this pond filling up with water. And then I immediately after the meeting went down to her house and stood on their dry cork floor in their basement where it was dry,” he said.

Barbara Hanbidge lives two blocks away from the new storm pond. While she said her home hasn’t been flooded, many of her neighbours’ homes have been.

“We’ve been in the neighbourhood for 20-something years and it’s gotten worse. A lot of people have had a lot of damage,” she said. “Even in our yard, we’ve got a lot of landscaping that we did to direct the water flow. Even though our basement doesn’t get flooded, we have a lot of problems in our yard.”

She said during the June rainfall, she went to the new storm pond.

“The water was over top of the inlet/outlet pipe on the end of the bowl,” she added.

Russ Munro, the director of Saskatoon water, said when there’s a storm, the rainwater that goes into the stormwater system collects in the dry pond. It’s held there and is slowly drained over a period of time, as opposed to collecting in basements or intersections.

“It can hold 15,000 cubic metres in this space,” he said. “(That’s) equivalent to six Olympic pools.”

Munro said it took about 24 hours for the space to empty.

The second storm pond under construction is located in nearby Churchill Park. That’s scheduled for completion in 2023.

Total cost of the project is nearly $52 million, with $21.6 million from the federal government and $30 million from the City of Saskatoon.