We could be in for very high water during the coming freshet. That’s the message Kimberley Mayor Don McCormick and Coun. Sandra Roberts received from a meeting with BC Hydro and US Army Engineer representatives last week. One of the most severe years was 2013, when Calgary flooded and all of the East Kootenay was dealing with extremely high water and flooding.
What McCormick and Roberts heard from the information session was that there could be similar problems this year.
“The Hydro folks and US Army Engineers put together a lot of data on the water table. They model and predict on this data. Our job is to translate it,” McCormick said. “What we learned is that there is no reason to panic, but this is a serious situation.”
The issue is the large snowpack still to melt.
“The freshet hasn’t even started yet. The pristine weather outside shouldn’t fool us into thinking we are not in for it.”
Conditions this year have created a perfect storm, McCormick says.
“Last October we had record rainfalls which saturated the ground. Then we had an extended freeze. There was no absorption of water into the ground. We have a snowpack well in excess of normal. That means a big runoff and we have yet to see the melt. They say these conditions are equal to or more serious than 2013.
“If it just gets warm, we can deal with the runoff. But if it gets warm and rains, that’s the perfect storm.”
The main concern in Kimberley is the Morrison Subdivision. Mark Creek, especially with the redesign of the flume, can handle the large runoff but Kimberley Creek in Morrison Sub is essentially a creek without banks that flows right through private property.
“We have done some things in Morrison Sub since 2012,” McCormick said. “We replaced the culvert where the bottleneck occurred, but it is still a stream without banks.”