Castanet

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#241286

For residents of Trout Lake (small lake behind Twin Lakes store), the flood "risk" has not ever gone away. RDOS was little help in the spring, no pumping done, while they did plenty of pumping for Twin Lakes and Park Rill. Even during the summer when the crisis was over for those areas, no help for Trout Lake residents. I have lived there for 22 years and we have never had issues. This year I had 3 feet of water on my front lawn, water level about 6 feet higher than normal. Still have sand bags in place but they are quickly deteriorating, still have pump running to keep water out of crawl space, as do others on the lake. Our septic was flooded in the spring, Ok for now but concerned for the spring. Water level has come back up about 5 inches since September.

Two comments:

1) There is a HUGE amount of water volume from what was flowing in the past to the last two years. I can't see this being just some kind of climatic change, I have to think someone somewhere has made some kind of midnight diversion upstream ... there is no way this amount of volume increase is due to normal climatic factors. The Sportsmans Bowl road stream that flows along the road has never significantly flooded in the 30+ years I have been here ... all of a sudden it floods in 2017 then this year way worse ... not just by a bit but by gigantic increases in flow. The Ministry of FLNRO compliance guys should be all over this ... but are they?

2) Now I see they have received money to study this while Gov't layers continue to point fingers at each other for liability ... meanwhile fall is here, snow soon and no work to mitigate what could most likely happen all over again. If I was the poor residents that were out of their homes for 2 months last year I'd be crazed by this.

Might I humbly say that if you build a home next to a water course or water reservoir (lake), do you not and should you not assume the risks of doing so? It matters not if things have been static for the last 30 yrs. We have things that are called 10yr, 50 yr and even 100 yr events.
Sorry but living next to water might have some attractions but it also comes with some very clear risks that the taxpayer that lives in an area that pays taxes for storm sewers, asphalt, curbs and settling ponds, should not be called upon for a bailout when your tax bill for the last 30 yrs was half of theirs.
There's a Piper here that need's payment. Sorry.

I am not going to argue with you,

I know my home insurance went up quite a bit due to flood risk.

My home is 2 city blocks from the lake in the heart of downtown penticton. *facepalm*

most insurance policies have flooding from external as a rider that is purchased separately, you do not have to pay for it if you don't want to, if they even offer that. Because of our proximity to the lake we cannot even get it.

smoky500 wrote:most insurance policies have flooding from external as a rider that is purchased separately, you do not have to pay for it if you don't want to, if they even offer that. Because of our proximity to the lake we cannot even get it.

I did hassle with them and they dropped the price of my rates. #phew

smoky500 wrote:most insurance policies have flooding from external as a rider that is purchased separately, you do not have to pay for it if you don't want to, if they even offer that. Because of our proximity to the lake we cannot even get it.

So if the insurance company you deal with will not even cover you for flood because of your proximity to the lake......why are you posting complaints here that the taxpayer is not covering your expenses for flood mitigation? Something does not smell right here smoky.

The point is that the RDOS is being unfair in their appropriation of funds/aid. They did plenty to help out in Willowbrook, Park Rill/Sportsman bowl and Twin Lakes but did little to help the residents of Trout Lake.

smoky500 wrote:The point is that the RDOS is being unfair in their appropriation of funds/aid. They did plenty to help out in Willowbrook, Park Rill/Sportsman bowl and Twin Lakes but did little to help the residents of Trout Lake.

I am sorry for your situation and I suspect that your lack of gov't funded aid response is a function of a budget of dollars available and just simply allocating it so that it benefited the highest number of people per dollar spent. Just a function of not enough Trout Lake residents to make a business case for taxpayer funds.
And let's be honest here. You live next to a Lake In BC, thirty min drive from the super store and regional hospital, while enjoying taxes lower than that would be paid for a two bedroom strata condo in Penticton. You need to accept some responsibility for your choice of residence location.

I aid I wasn't going to argue with you, but here goes.

Yes, I probably pay less in taxes, but I also do not have fire protection so pay more for fire insurance, I typically wait 2 -3 days for our road to be plowed when there is snow, If I do want to go to the pool I have to drive for 30 min. and it does cost about $7 - 8 for fuel in my fuel efficient vehicle, $12 if I take my truck, if we need an ambulance we wait 20 - 30 min. for it to arrive..... So living in the country is not as economical as some might think.

The RDOS had several reasons for not responding to our situation, one of which was health/safety, and if you recall I said our septic field was flooded and the lake is our water source, I think that would qualify as a health concern.

Everything has a trade off.

smoky500 wrote:I aid I wasn't going to argue with you, but here goes.

Yes, I probably pay less in taxes, but I also do not have fire protection so pay more for fire insurance, I typically wait 2 -3 days for our road to be plowed when there is snow, If I do want to go to the pool I have to drive for 30 min. and it does cost about $7 - 8 for fuel in my fuel efficient vehicle, $12 if I take my truck, if we need an ambulance we wait 20 - 30 min. for it to arrive..... So living in the country is not as economical as some might think.

The RDOS had several reasons for not responding to our situation, one of which was health/safety, and if you recall I said our septic field was flooded and the lake is our water source, I think that would qualify as a health concern.

Everything has a trade off.

once again that's all your choice and if your septic tank and field are polluting the lake be thankful theyre not coming after you for that

smoky500 wrote:I aid I wasn't going to argue with you, but here goes.

Yes, I probably pay less in taxes, but I also do not have fire protection so pay more for fire insurance, I typically wait 2 -3 days for our road to be plowed when there is snow, If I do want to go to the pool I have to drive for 30 min. and it does cost about $7 - 8 for fuel in my fuel efficient vehicle, $12 if I take my truck, if we need an ambulance we wait 20 - 30 min. for it to arrive..... So living in the country is not as economical as some might think.

The RDOS had several reasons for not responding to our situation, one of which was health/safety, and if you recall I said our septic field was flooded and the lake is our water source, I think that would qualify as a health concern.

Everything has a trade off.

I won't even start on how much fuel it takes you to drive to a pool you pay nothing for maintenance, wages, orany other operating costs.....and you get in for free.
Your biggest concern, that your public posts have just shone a very bright light on is that your septic system is polluting a public lake and also a source of drinking water. I am thinking you can expect a notice on your property title from Interior Health that sums that up. Best of luck if you want to sell and so glad you saved a few k in taxes and had a few swims for free.

The question that rings out in my mind is what has changed over the last couple of years to have such a dramatic effect on flow rates? There was a lot of work done on the highway through that stretch and isn’t there a new development up on the hillside not far from there? If these projects have changed conditions for spring runoff then there are some tough questions to be asked there.

fluffy wrote:The question that rings out in my mind is what has changed over the last couple of years to have such a dramatic effect on flow rates? There was a lot of work done on the highway through that stretch and isn’t there a new development up on the hillside not far from there? If these projects have changed conditions for spring runoff then there are some tough questions to be asked there.

I don't think so fluff. It was an unusual cold winter (deep frost layer) and wet wet spring. The fact that water is still flowing in creeks that are normally dry in fall speaks volumes. Sportsman Bowl in Oliver case in point. Just an anomalous year.
Next year we might be reading, "never seen the pond this low in 30 yrs".