New stormwater shaft for Toronto’s East Bayfront

Among the many construction projects taking place along the Toronto waterfront, one is a large new stormwater attenuation shaft to service the East Bayfront precinct.

The shaft will be located south of Queens Quay East, west of Parliament Street. It will process stormwater from the entire East Bayfront precinct, one of several communities being developed by Waterfront Toronto on former brownfield sites.

R.V. Anderson Associates, civil engineers for lead designer West8+DTAH, are designing the stormwater shaft. It is 12 metres in diameter and 20 metres tall, with walls 0.5-m thick. A series of sewers will direct flow from roads and developments through oil grit separators and into the shaft via two inlet pipes, one 900 mm and another 600 mm in diameter. MMM Group and WSP Group are designing the linear infrastructure for the system.

From the stormwater shaft the flows will be sent to the new West Don Lands stormwater management facility located at 480 Lake Shore Boulevard East, where they will be treated using a ballasted flocculation process. A portion of the treated flows will then return to East Bayfront for final treatment at the Sherbourne Common UV treatment facility.

Originally the plant at 480 Lake Shore Boulevard was to treat storm runoff from the West Don Lands and North Keating Precinct, but now R.V. Anderson is redesigning the plant to accommodate the increased flows from the East Bayfront precinct as well.

In addition, the city is proposing building a new gravity sewer from East Bayfront through the North Keating Area along Lake Shore Boulevard to a new pumping station at 480 Lake Shore Boulevard East. Last month Waterfront Toronto invited public comments on the proposal.  XCG Consultants and WSP Canada are both involved in this project.

Consisting of 23 hectares, the East Bayfront precinct is close to downtown and is designed to incorporate 6,000 residential units and 3 million square feet of commercial space. It already has two signature parks, Sherbourne Common and Sugar Beach, as well as George Brown College and Corus Quay directly on the lakefront.

Concrete is being pumped into the shaft for the 5th pour of the shaft walls for the Stormwater Management Shaft in East Bayfront, with George Brown College’s Waterfront Campus in the background.