She's experienced high water levels and low water levels and everything in between. Her basement has flooded, she has replaced valuables and checking her sump pump is just as much a part of her daily routine as brushing her teeth.

So, when the town proposed a new plan to alleviate drainage problems in the area, you'd think she would have been jumping for joy.

She didn't.

Like many concerned neighbours, Johnston had questions about the project, which includes digging up the beach at the end of Bernard Street.

"I just want to make sure they put the beach back to the way it was," she said. "A lot of people use that beach. As long as the beach is the way it was, I'm all for it."

Her neighbour, Joe Spath, agrees.

"The town is thinking about the environmental issues and the beach is going to be intact. If it can stop the flooding, I'm all for it."

There is currently a lot of digging in the sand at Thunder Bay beach -- and it's not to make sand castles.

The town is undertaking a new drainage system to alleviate flooding in the Thunder Bay area and contractors have dug up the beach as part of phase one.

Drainage problems in the area date back decades. In February, basements of several homes in the area were completely filled with water.

After examining several routes the water could take, studies revealed costly, roundabout methods of forcing water in the area to drain to the lake. So, town engineers decided to take a more direct route under the beach.

"The water had one way to go and it wasn't going there," said Ian Izzard, manager of engineering infrastructure services.

The best method to drain storm water is to use gravity -- that is, dig holes down to drain water to the lake, said Izzard. Using underground plastic tubes to flow the water under the beach, the town is avoiding simply ending the project with the pipe at the top of a beach, running water out of the pipe and eroding a deep ditch across the beach.

Because the municipal beach at Bernard Avenue is only 66 feet wide, the town had to find an alternative to a space-consuming, ugly pipe and ditch.

The under-beach pipes, called storm chambers, are designed to take in ground water and carry it to a storm sewer system or as a backup, store it. A drainage field of stone ensures the water will be carried to the end of the beach and dispersed back into the lake, without eroding the beach. The pipes sit about four feet underground and maintenance will be done through manholes.

At a public meeting, Izzard said residents expressed concern about the destruction of the beach.

"There was concern we would take right now what is a beautiful beach and destroy it," he said. "We will have all this work done and will still leave the area as beautiful and clean as before we started."

A mountain of sand sits piled at the end of the beach while crews install the pipes. When the $3-million project is complete, the sand will be put back exactly the way it was, said Izzard.

"The best part of the design is the fact that even with a storm surge like the one in February, this new system will still be above the lake level so it will still work," said Izzard.

Izzard said there have been several attempts made to solve the area's flooding problem to no avail.

"A project like this has never been done before in Ontario. It's innovative and it saves the beach."

Izzard said other municipalities with similar constraints are watching to see which way the water flows at Thunder Bay beach.

The first phase of the project, which consists of work in the beach area, will be completed by the end of May. The entire drainage system won't be complete for about two years.

Izzard said similar technology could be used as part of a solution to the flooding problems in Crescent Park, but there are other factors affecting that area.