Public Services and Government Works Canada (PSGWC) is the federal agency that owns and operates the historical Canso Canal seaway, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island.

Snow Owl was engaged to assess the site’s stormwater management problems and design renovations to mitigate the detrimental effects to the site. These challenges were greatly compounded by extensive hardscape surfacing and severely limited space available to make meaningful changes in a working service yard.

• We needed to cut off the extensive groundwater flow and runoff originating on the hillside above the site, despite having no wiggle room to work in between the service yard and the adjacent Trans-Canada Trail. So we turned the trail itself into a stormwater management facility, adding a drainage and infiltration trench underneath, while improving the trail surface corridor on behalf of its active transportation users.
• Previous stormwater damage had heaved the paved service yard to pieces, jammed building access doors shut, and routinely flooded the service yard. We resurfaced it with a permeable gravel sub-base, and directed the industrial site surface runoff into custom water quality catchbasins, removing pollutant loads before entering several infiltration chamber facilities, located below the new pavement and in the grassy median next to the Canal.
• The Canso Canal service area we renovated in 2016 no longer experiences pavement heaving problems, flooding, or jammed building doors. Runoff quantity and quality from the site into the receiving ocean waters has been improved dramatically.