By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 2017
Ottawa is bringing back sump pumps in new houses because the suburban land we have left is too crummy to build on without them.
The city’s hand is being forced, says Felice Petti, the city’s manager in charge of a review of Ottawa’s infrastructure standards. The usual way of building new houses, with sewer pipes under the streets installed lower than the basements so that water just drains into them by gravity, won’t work. So new rules allowing sump pumps (permanently installed devices that keep basements from flooding) are part of a plan to build “better and smarter suburbs.”
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/reevely-sump-pumps-making-a-comeback-in-ottawa-as-the-city-runs-out-of-good-suburban-land