A Windsor, N.S., woman is abandoning her home because she can no longer wait for a fix to the town's overburdened sewage and storm water system.
Windsor's combined sewage and storm water system is overburdened, needs to be separated
After five years of living on a flood-prone street in downtown Windsor, N.S., Amanda Dunfield says she’s been left with no choice but to abandon her home.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “I am ashamed of my leadership, I am ashamed of how my community has met this challenge and I don’t wish to remain here.”
Dunfield and her neighbours on Stannus Street — one of the most affected areas in town — have dealt with repeated flooding and sewage overflow since 2021.
Often during heavy rains, brown-coloured water spews out of catch basins because the combined sewer and storm water system is overburdened and the aging infrastructure can’t cope with the flow.
Residents have lost washing machines, dryers, lawn mowers, generators, bicycles — even cars — to water damage.
Dunfield said in the past they’ve found shredded toilet paper, sanitary products and contraceptive products on their lawns and driveways after a flooding event.
She said she’s spent “well beyond the six-figure range” on remediation and prevention efforts, but that’s still not enough to ensure her house is protected.
With no end in sight and no immediate hope of selling the property, Dunfield’s patience has run out and she purchased a new home in another region.
“It was absolutely not easy. I’m taking on a large mortgage at retirement age as a single parent with a minor child,” she said. “It’s scary.
“It was a process for sure trying to find a home that’s within our very tiny budget, leaving behind what we thought was a build of equity and starting fresh from scratch again.”
Abraham Zebian, mayor of West Hants Regional Municipality, said “it’s unfortunate that any resident wants to leave a community.”
“We never want to see that be the case at all,” Zebian told CBC. “Everybody has to make a decision that works for them. If that’s what she feels is best for her at this point, we … have to respect her decision and we support her in her move going forward.”
The fix
In August 2025, CBCL Limited, an engineering and environmental design consulting firm, presented a long-awaited report to council with a series of recommendations after it was hired by the municipality to study the system and its limitations.
CBCL found that in order to fully address the issue, the combined sewer and storm water pipes must be separated.
This would ultimately cost more than $142 million, the firm’s report said.
But engineers also presented several less costly, shorter-term options that could improve the flooding and ease the burden on the system in the meantime.
Zebian said the municipality is moving forward with a plan recommended by the experts — a combination of separating the pipes over time, but also building a series of diversion measures to move the storm water away from the downtown core toward Tregothic Marsh near Highway 101.
He said this is currently in the detailed design phase. Once completed, the designs must be approved before funding applications can be submitted and construction can begin.
Council has approved the designs for a diversion project on O’Brien Street that is expected to go to tender in November, the mayor said.
Zebian could not put an exact price tag on these projects at this stage, but said they’re expected to cost “millions and millions,” and the municipality will require financial support from all levels of government.
To date, the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs has invested almost $1.8 million for flood-risk studies and infrastructure improvements in West Hants. That’s including $317,000 “towards flood-risk studies and design work associated with Windsor’s downtown core,” a provincial spokesperson confirmed in an email.
Kings-Hants MP Kody Blois told CBC in an interview that he’s aware of the infrastructure problems in Windsor and although they’re ultimately the municipality's responsibility, he knows that requests for federal support are “coming down the line.”
“When there’s municipal issues or municipal infrastructure needs, I always try to be a champion for the needs of our community to try to work with the province and work with the various federal departments on where we can find the funding,” he said.
Too little, too late
Dunfield said residents are feeling discouraged and a future fix does not help those dealing with the problem today.
“There’s no definitive end in sight. We’re hearing talk, talk, talk, talk and no action,” she said.
She said when she and her daughter, 11, have tried to speak up and advocate on behalf of the community, they’ve felt “dismissed and minimized.”
“If this was the MLA’s home, if this was the mayor’s home, if this was their children, would the action be different? Would they voluntarily come on down here with their families and ride this out until the situation is resolved?” Dunfield asked.
Zebian said he wishes things could move faster.
“Unfortunately with Mother Nature and the fixes that are required for this type of work, it can’t be done overnight. But the council has done a significant amount of work, and has allocated significant resources to getting these fixes complete,” he said.
But it’s too little, too late for Dunfield, who has already packed up and moved out, ready to call a new community home.
“I’m feeling very optimistic that we can pick up some of where we left off … where we’re not being held hostage by the weather, hostage by the inaction, hostage by the finances of dealing with cleanups, evacuations, all this,” she said.
