Ben, I agree with your assessment of eye popping programs of mitigation. It amazes me that taxpayers in Prince George are on the hook for a conglomerates mistakes and we continue to ignore the elephant in the room and wriggle to their tune.

Let's look at the root cause of the problem and insist that the culprit start their own programs with their own dollars to ensure that no one will be affected by their future oversights. If we and other communities on the Nechako don't grab a pair and insist on some accountability, we will be picking up the bill every few years when they need to spill a "little" water into our communal waterways.
Let's get on with dredging the confluence of the river and maintain the practice as a preventative measure because Acts of God do happen, but 1996 and last years flood were not acts of God. Wake up people!!!

Force a Kemano sale to BC Hydro, and dredge the river is the only sure way PG will have any kind of security for its downtown from a future devastating flood. The plan seems to be try anything, but those two solutions... and cost is not a factor as long as it doesn't involve dredging or dealing with Kemano.

Mayor Rogers and council better take a good look at the way our Bureaucratic Administration is handling this situation. If they were in the private sector they would be going down the road kicking horse turds. This whole river flood boondogle is beyond comprehension. Any dirt contractor with a few pieces of equipment could have solved this problem a year ago. If we ever have another study, it should be to study the credentials and competence of our city decision makers. They are totally out of their league on this issue. Mayor Dan...It's time for a checkup.

I agree with Eagleone.... The Kemano power system should be bought by the government so that the industry and the people of B.C. can enjoy reasonable power prices. Privatization of Hydro is a big mistake. If we are to remain competitive and economically strong, then we need control over our hydro. Better control of this resevoir and dredging would definitely help the flood situation in P.G.

I agree with you all, the dredging of the river should be a priority. Mayor Dan Rogers should be doing this to ensure P.G.'s safety. When they have been doing the dredging down south for a long time and it works for there why not here. Last years flood was a result of the dam and not an act of god, or the beetle killed trees not taking up the water. They [the governments all levels] are passing the buck to who knows where and it is time to get it done. Thanks Ben for bringing this up again now maybe something will be done, we hope. We have not heard much fron City Council lately, are they starting to get ashamed about their rediculous actions of this past year and present?

I like the Kemano purchase idea

Glad to see the issue brought up again.
Same old stuff though, the major population centre gets immediate, effective action, everywhere else in the province: BEYOND HOPE.
metalman.

Klein used to mine the gravel in that general area of the Fraser when the water was low, but not the Nechako, to the best of my knowledge.

http://www.city.pg.bc.ca/city_services/emergency/icejam/doc/PGConsultation-May21-08-Residents.doc

From the above document prepared by the Fraser Basin Council May 2008

KEY ACTIONS –
• Presentations and summary notes from May 21-22, 2008 meetings will be made available to meeting participants and the PUBLIC.
• PROGRESS REPORTS will be made available to agencies, stakeholders and the PUBLIC.
• The project team will CIRCULATE A LIST of flood management options for consideration (as an interim deliverable prior to October / November 2008).
• The Fraser Basin Council and the City of Prince George will EXPLORE opportunities for SHARING THE INFORMATION electronically THROUGHOUT THE PROJECT.

------- The question is, has the public in PG been kept informed on the progress of the work?

Kemano was built to provide power to the smelters at Kitimat. Once those smelters are not working than Kemano should revert back to the province and I hope we have a government that has the balls to do just that. If Kemano is the culprit why has there not been more years with flooding problems. Dredge the river and lets be done with it but run the gravel through a slucie box. We might get enough gold to pay for the whole operation.

So just because another region has decided to dramatically alter the ecosystme on their section of river, it means we should just jump right in and do the same?

There are environmental impacts to be looked at before dredging. They may be further along on the impact assessment side of things that we are. I agree that something needs to be done, but the proper procedures have to be followed.

It certainly would be nice to have some clarification from city council that the matter is being looked at though, and not just being ignored until the next flood occurs.

Some forward thinking is required, but we should not get into doing things just because someone else is doing it - a lesson that many of us learned as a child.

Good idea downnotout... Back in the old days a man could make a days wages paning for gold in the Fraser.

Considering the Millions of cubic yards of sand and silt that has came down the river in recient years, I don't think there is much chance of a dredging operation having much effect. Lets use COMMON SENSE...something the city bureaucrates could use more of.

" Posted by: metalman on January 29 2009 8:52 AM
Glad to see the issue brought up again.
Same old stuff though, the major population centre gets immediate, effective action, everywhere else in the province: BEYOND HOPE.
metalman."

The gravel removal project on the lower Fraser River is nothing more than a gravel pit operation being put into place under the guise of flood control.

This gravel pit will do nothing to control flooding in the LML.

The only thing it will do is put cash into some peoples pockets.

Think about it, if you have a pail that is half full of gravel and half full of water, what do you have? A full pail.

Now take that same pail and dump the contents out and fill it back up with water, what do you have? Thats right you still have a full pail.

Dig a big deep hole in the bottom of the Fraser River and then allow it to fill up with water, what do you have?
Thats right you have a River that is still the same level as it was before you dug the big deep hole in it.

SOME of you are getting good at this.

All the gravel that was removed from the river bottom to make that big hole has done nothing but put money in someones pockets, PERIOD.
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"Posted by: giterdun on January 29 2009 10:33 AM
Considering the Millions of cubic yards of sand and silt that has came down the river in recient years, I don't think there is much chance of a dredging operation having much effect. Lets use COMMON SENSE...something the city bureaucrates could use more of."

Well giterdun common sense says that if you remove a dam, (in this case this dam is at the mouth of the Nechako and is made up of "millions of cubic yards of sand and silt")it will allow free flow of water, ice and slush into the Fraser River. Thus eliminating further icejam flooding.

Some people still don't understand that what is causing the icejam is the FACT that the ice is running aground on these gravel bars. Removing these gravel bars removes the icejam and flooding problem.

For those that are worried about the ecosystem I agree with Giterdun.

I think floods have more of a negative impact on the ecosystem with all that crap that is drawn into the system than a small well run dredging operation.

Concerns with the ecosystem should be placed at Kemanos feet.

There is no shortage of gravel or licenses to sell it. I don't think anyone is going to get rich dredging the river. Conspiracy theory much?

Posted by: Junco on January 29 2009 12:02 PM
There is no shortage of gravel or licenses to sell it. I don't think anyone is going to get rich dredging the river. Conspiracy theory much?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What river and where are you talking about Junco?

For your information, gravel removal down in the lowermainland from the Fraser river is big business and they just don't hand out licences for access to it. If you do some research into you will see.

Conspiracy theory???

To add to that...
No one has suggested that a gravel removal project at the mouth of the Nechako would be a "for profit" operation like the one down on the lower Fraser is.

The removal project here on the Nechako is for one simple reason "True Flood Control". Unlike the "for profit" operation down south.

Gee, Lostfaith, thanks for clearing all that up, really appreciate it.
downnotout: Kemano caused the river level to rise last year only, because one of their generators was down for repairs thus they could not run water through that tunnel. The consequence of that is that the now excess water has to drain back this way, past Kenney dam, to the Nechako. Normally there is not such an excess of water having to come this way. I do not know if that situation ever happened before.
The fact remains however that the river bed at the confluence of the Nechako & Fraser must be lowered, ergo; gravel must be removed.

metalman.

Anytime Metal ;-)

Gravel removal could provide free materials for the building of the Boundary Road road bed. The province would pay for the cost of removal at the expense of the ministry of environment and the savings could be applied to the City's part of the cost of Boundary road.

##smile##

We could also do the lower mainland "miners" a favour and dump the silt/clay from the airport back into the river where it was originally located before we started living here. One bucket in, one bucket out, to make sure that the bottom half of the bucket is never filled with water.

BTW, that bucket that has the bottom part of the bucket filled with gravel, and the top part with water ...... in the winter it has the bottom filled with gravel and a bit of water in between and the top half with ice. Remove the gravel and in the winter the bucket has the bottom part with water and the top part with ice floating on the bottom water part.

Gus and lost; I have always been a 'glass half full' guy, so I don't understand,does this new bucket theory mean that the sturgeon are coming back to roost in the deeper water left after you take the half bouquet of gravel out? Will the Leafs win the cup?
metalman.

Holy chit Gus, now you got me scratchin my head.
The ministry of Environment is the govt.

Where exactly is the bottom in the winter when the gravel is gone?

When and if they start dredging up the gravel, maybe they can take a few loads of it back to where the ice oval is. No questions asked, too!

I have a pic. of a kid dirt biking on the Fraser riverbed near the CN bridge in 2006. Take the sandy gravel mounds and dirt bikes out of the river.
Did you all see on the Knowledge Network a few weeks ago of what the planet could look like after humans have been wiped out for 200+ years? It was beautiful in a scary kind of way.

Finally, a question for which the answer is clear. No, metalman, the Leafs will not win the cup.

heidi1555.

Those scientists also project what Prince George will be like then. The air quality will still be bad proving that it is not the industry or the people. It is a natural phenomenon.

Hydro taking over Kemano. What is that supposed to solve? Three quarters of Kemano's power goes into the smelter and any excess is sold on the open market. The maximum excess is only 300 megawatts. What are we supposed to do, get rid of the smelter.

Well with a billion dollars up for grabs for infrastructure from the feds now, the city/entreprenual geniuses should have no problem getting the dredging project off the ground! Job creation, flood control and gravel resource supply all right there waiting...

"The air quality will still be bad proving that it is not the industry or the people. It is a natural phenomenon."


What "natural phenomenon" would that be Gus?

Inversions, pheremones and dust.

Sorry, forgot to include wildfires as another natural source.

From the link below:

"Air pollutants come from a variety of natural and human-made sources. Natural sources can include windblown dust and soot from wildfires. The Blue Ridge Mountains of the eastern United States have a haze caused by the natural emissions of VOCs from trees and plants (mostly isoprene) which are oxidized and form aerosols"

http://www.nps.gov/shen/naturescience/visibility_and_haze.htm

Seriously gus, you're not fooling anybody around here.

There are "pollutants" which are man made and there are "pollutants" which are made by the rest of nature. There are man made methods of diluting them or concentrating them and there are natural systems which do the same.

People are fooled or not fooled on their own. There is nothing I can do about them not understanding some simple truths.

Relative to other areas of this part of the earth, this area will still continue to have poorer air quality simply because the river level is in a bowl and region has inversions thus trapping whatever occurs, whether it is the methane from the bogs and decaying ground materials or fire events both local and far away. The Long beach area of the Island, on the other hand, will keep on having reltively good air quality.

The meese will not like it one bit.

"Relative to other areas of this part of the earth, this area will still continue to have poorer air quality simply because the river level is in a bowl and region has inversions thus trapping whatever occurs, whether it is the methane from the bogs and decaying ground materials or fire events both local and far away."

You're aware that we have pulp mills too, right? I think everyone is aware that we live in a bowl and pollutants often get trapped in here. Heavy industry is also located in that same bowl. Coincedence? You be the judge.