Flooding concerns worsen due to hillside clear cutting

Letter to the editor:
A great wide swath of hillside has been clear cut at the end of Owen St., behind John St. in Picton and leading in a giant curve down towards Glenora Road.

The road allowance to the end of Low Street has also been denuded. Community gossip is that there will be a new subdivision built on this land – eventually. Currently the residents of John and Harvey streets deal regularly with overflowing ditches and fast-running swales from the Owen St. hillside in times of heavy rain fall. The small rain water retention pond at the top of the hill on Owen Street is in the wrong place and is too small to prevent flooding.

Trees on a hillside help to hold rain water and keep soil in place. I am concerned that until this new subdivision is built with, I hope adequate storm water management engineering, we will have even more disastrous flooding in our neighbourhood.

This premature clear cutting should not have happened. This reminds me of the Main Street church being destroyed on a Sunday morning without proper approval. Where is our planning department?
Cheryl Anderson
Picton