Water levels throughout the MD of Bonnyville are being monitored, but from what they can see, there’s nothing to worry about.
“We do have a few roads where the MD has set-up detours, but nothing abnormal. You’re going to get those every spring. The MD is very good where when they find chronic problem areas they look for a solution,” Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA) fire chief Brian McEvoy said.
“As far as what we’ve seen in flooding concerns for this year… I look at where we were last year with the excessive snowmelt we had. We had a couple of very hot-button issues that showed up, whether it was Pine Meadows or Crane Lake, and we had spent some additional resources on those, again working on areas where there were multiple homes involved, larger catchment issues to deal with, and thankfully, a lot of those areas, I received no calls from regarding high levels of excessive flooding,” explained Darcy Zelisko, director of infrastructure and utilities for the MD.
Although last spring’s problem areas may not be experiencing the same issue this year, Country Lane Estates and Country Side Estates, two subdivisions in the Cold Lake area, both became victims of mother nature.
Over the weekend of April 20 to 22, their area was severally flooded, and now, the MD is working with the designer of the subdivision to come up with a long-term solution.
“Every year we will have pop-up areas where they show up and we will do whatever we can,” Zelisko said.
These weren’t the only calls coming in over the weekend. The MD’s transportation and utilities department also received complaints from residents with flooded driveways, yards, and even some roadways.
Reeve Greg Sawchuk said when it comes down to it, the risk to people’s homes is always priority.
“What they were having to do on-site was basically triage all of these calls. Of course, you have to look at people’s houses, that’s the first priority, and then it works its way down,” he explained.
For Country Lane Estates, the MD has a few tricks up their sleeves, but one thing they have to consider moving forward is Palm Creek, which flows through the City of Cold Lake.
“All of this water (from the subdivision) goes into Palm Creek, which is just east of the subdivision. That flows right through the City of Cold Lake, and I know in the city, where the Palm Creek was flowing, was at capacity,” detailed Zelisko.
Sawchuk added, “They were trying to balance out the whole thing. There were pumps, but the city was calling at the same time and saying that the water flowing down the creek was at its limit. They were worried about the flow taking out a bridge... The city and MD worked very closely together. The city brought out an extra pump and a steamer. It was a coordinated effort, and it was trying to save all of the infrastructure possible.”
One of their concerns, was the location of the Country Lane Estates’ transformer. If it shorted, sub pumps would have shut down, causing major issues for residents.
ATCO was on-site chatting with homeowners and confirming their sub pumps were still running.
“The last thing we wanted was for the transformer to go down and for their sub pumps to go,” Sawchuk expressed.
Working with the planning and development department for the MD, Zelisko will map out options to solve the issue in Country Lane Estates.
Over the same weekend, there was anywhere from 30 to 50 complaints. Zelisko couldn’t pinpoint an exact number because some calls were for the same issue.
“The thing about it, is if a road is flooded or a yard, that’s different than people actually having their homes flooded, and we haven’t had that issue yet,” McEvoy said.
This is why the MD have waited to declare a local state if emergency, which is done when extraordinary procedures are needed to resolve flooding, fire, or natural disaster issues, among others.
The MD has also decided not to apply for the Disaster Recovery Program through the Province of Alberta, unlike last year.
The program helps residents pay for any uninsurable property damaged by natural disasters.
“If we were to have a situation where people had property that was uninsurable damaged, then we could and would apply for another one,” noted McEvoy, up until this point, no one has filed a complaint.
For now, the MD is monitoring problem areas, keeping a close eye on the Beaver River, especially after receiving notification from Alberta Environment River Monitoring letting the BRFA know the river had hit its trigger height.
“The trigger height is not where we have imminent setting or anything else. The trigger height we have set with the river monitoring group is the point where we start active monitoring the river as well as them,” explained McEvoy. “We don’t have a lot of infrastructure in the flood zone of the Beaver River. We do have a couple of residents that do have access roads and driveways that can be impacted by the river, and the MD has two bridge structures that we have to monitor when the river gets high.”
But, McEvoy stressed, “We’ve seen the Beaver River a lot higher than this.”
Part of their monitoring process involves checking the status of the snow melt even beyond the MD’s borders.
The headwaters of the Beaver River are in Lac La Biche County, and were snow covered, for the most part until early last week.
According to McEvoy, the majority of the water created from the snow melt will make its way down the Beaver River.
“I don’t foresee the Beaver River hitting significantly high water levels,” he added.
On Thursday, April 26, the MD announced they were closing the Lessard Bridge. Residents are being detoured due to the safety of the bridge possibly being compromised.
Any major issues they’re facing were caused by an unusual thaw.
“We would see plus two during the day, so we would see a little bit of water run, but then we would get minus 16 at night, and it would freeze up very solid,” described Zelisko.
This was causing the culverts to freeze and the ditches to flood.
“Its going to take a long time to thaw. We’re working on those as best as we can,” he said.
