No Flood This Year- No Surprise
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 @ 3:44 AM
You may recall when we had the last flood on the Nechako River one thing stood out front and center. The flood came within a couple of weeks of Alcan opening up the Skins Lake Spillway and letting out a large gush of water.
You may also recall that the powers that be in this city , along with a consultant who had done work for Alcan, said at the time that the spill had little to do with the flood in this city which cost several million of dollars to not only the province but the city as well.
Here we are today and those same people are now suggesting that the river flood prospect is low to moderate. That’s a good call given the fact that the river level going into the freeze was much below what it was when we had the last flood. The reason, well to no one’s surprise who can see what happens when you fill your water glass to full.
The only problem in all this, is just what were those people who were inconvenienced by being flooded out to receive. What was the City paid for the millions that we dumped into to upgrade our flood mitigation, well the answer to that is a simple, nothing.
There is a hook however in all of this and that is that Alcan can dump water whenever it chooses into the Nechako and the people of Vanderhoof and Prince George found that out during the last go round. Now at the time we were told that it was maybe the Stewart River that was causing the problem, but isn’t Vanderhoof upstream of the Stewart?
So this year we are unlikely to have a flood, and you wonder why?
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s Opinion.
Comments
Has anyone been able to measure the actual level of the water in the Nechako where the ice jamb is? I would want to relate that level to the level of the groundwater in a few drillholes on both sides of the river where flooding through seepage has traditionally occurred. Have such tests ever been conducted?
BTW, it is only January. What is the snowpack like to the west of us? Little snow in town, but that is different on the coast. Don’t know if that amount of snowfall extends further inland to influence the Nechako watershed.
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