City Continues to Monitor Nechako River
Prince George, B.C. – The City of Prince George is continuing to monitor ice levels on the Nechako River.
Communications director Rob Van Adrichem says there’s been no change since yesterday other than the work on the back channel to remove ice.
At last night’s city council meeting, he told council there is about 35 kilometres of stationary ice, stretching from Red Rock canyon on the Fraser then up to the Nechako to approximately Pharaoh Road at the west end of Toombs Drive.
He said removing the ice was the best move they could make to offset any rising levels on the Nechako as the ice shifts and melts during the current mild temperatures.
The city activated a level one emergency operations centre due to the continued ice build-up on the Nechako River near the confluence with the Fraser River last Thursday.
Comments
I want adrichems job.. he hasn’t done anything since taking the job.. oh wait..he did tell us there is ice on the rivers… whew.. good to know… and all that for $156,000 a year.. ( thinks that was posted as he wage when he took the “job”)
/Thats pretty close P Val. A little less than what he made at UNBC but still a nice salary.
Having the river frozen from Prince George to Quesnel was at one time a given. Its only since the arrival of the pulp mills in the sixties, and the somewhat warmer weather that we get some years without any freezing in the PG area.
Same thing applies to the Nechako. The freezing of the rivers has no bearing on the flooding at the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser rivers. This is a result of the ice getting hung up on silt on the South side of the river which has been accumulating for 60 or more years, resulting in a shift of the Nechako river flow to the North side and then head on into the Fraser. If you look at the photo taken from the airplane (previously posted) you would see quite clearly where the problem lies. You can also get a good indication when you look down from the top of highway 16 hill past the Provincial Jail.
If they can clear the South channel enough to keep the water flowing on the South side into the Fraser it should alleviate the problem.
I actually saw Rob on the local news twice in the last week or so!
I thought that he was just a myth but he’s actually a real person! Go figure!
I seem to remember that…but I think the second was a rerun of the first one.
City Hall couldn’t take the advice of someone from PG to dredge the south channel. It would have to come from some US company, much like re-instituting the standby fee for equipment for snow removal??
It just makes me wonder what is going to happen if a large volume of water starts running through that channel. I guess there is the possibility of it gouging a lot of soil out and possibly even becoming the new main channel.
Then what?
Right or Wrong(?), it is my understanding that, that is where the main channel used to be, and with the silt build up, it has occupied the area where it is now?
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