Flood Review

[Grandan]

Anyone heard what pro-active plans the municipalities, the Province of BC, the Regional District putting are putting in place, besides adjusting the lake level? Ministry of Forests still hasn't followed up on the recommendations to their 2014 report ("LOWER MISSION CREEK HYDRAULIC CAPACITY STUDY KELOWNA, BC, March 2014) to remove gravel and fix critical parts of the Mission Creek dyke. I'm sure other creeks and rivers are being equally ignored.

There is a good reason why the province mandates the geodetic elevation that homes can be built at when adjacent to water bodies.

[WalterWhite]

This is also usually about the time an annual statement is released by the Central Okanagan Basin Water Board that "despite higher than normal snowpack levels, drought conditions are expected and water conservation methods will start to be implemented in the coming weeks".

[swamp1967]

Anyone heard what pro-active plans the municipalities, the Province of BC, the Regional District putting are putting in place, besides adjusting the lake level? Ministry of Forests still hasn't followed up on the recommendations to their 2014 report ("LOWER MISSION CREEK HYDRAULIC CAPACITY STUDY KELOWNA, BC, March 2014) to remove gravel and fix critical parts of the Mission Creek dyke. I'm sure other creeks and rivers are being equally ignored.

There is a good reason why the province mandates the geodetic elevation that homes can be built at when adjacent to water bodies.

Do you have a reference for that? I'm not aware it applies here. Also, that would probably depend on flood maps, which are over 30 years old along Mission Creek.

KLO - Mission Creek Bridge - March 2018

As you can see from the above photo, Ministry of Forests and Lands hasn't even bothered to remove the gravel under the bridge. So what are they waiting for? A debris jam to destroy the bridge? How many other places is this happening?

[Glacier]

I could have saved tax payers a million bucks (or whatever it cost). But, hey, they have money to burn to tell you that the sky is blue...

An independent review of last spring's historic flooding across the Southern Interior has concluded decisions made at the Penticton dam and throughout the Okanagan Lake Regulation System were appropriate and operationally sound.

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#221084

[Urban Cowboy]

I could have saved tax payers a million bucks (or whatever it cost). But, hey, they have money to burn to tell you that the sky is blue...

An independent review of last spring's historic flooding across the Southern Interior has concluded decisions made at the Penticton dam and throughout the Okanagan Lake Regulation System were appropriate and operationally sound.

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#221084

Exactly.

So all the time and money spent on this review, simply confirmed what most of us were saying last year already, before the review.

[alanjh595]

So all the time and money spent on this review, simply confirmed what most of us were saying last year already, before the review.

Too much water, too fast?

[Grandan]

Anyone heard what pro-active plans the municipalities, the Province of BC, the Regional District putting are putting in place, besides adjusting the lake level? Ministry of Forests still hasn't followed up on the recommendations to their 2014 report ("LOWER MISSION CREEK HYDRAULIC CAPACITY STUDY KELOWNA, BC, March 2014) to remove gravel and fix critical parts of the Mission Creek dyke. I'm sure other creeks and rivers are being equally ignored.

There is a good reason why the province mandates the geodetic elevation that homes can be built at when adjacent to water bodies.

Do you have a reference for that? I'm not aware it applies here. Also, that would probably depend on flood maps, which are over 30 years old along Mission Creek.

20180309 - Mission Creek KLO Bridge (Resized).jpg

As you can see from the above photo, Ministry of Forests and Lands hasn't even bothered to remove the gravel under the bridge. So what are they waiting for? A debris jam to destroy the bridge? How many other places is this happening?

There are endless studies but this one references the geodetic elevation for Okanagan Lake.
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wsd/data_searc ... _river.pdf
According to this document the province has shifted the liability onto the municipal governments.
https://www.kelowna.ca/sites/files/1/do ... ek_faq.pdf

[swamp1967]

For those that are interested, the BC Flood and Wildfire review is coming to Kelowna on March 28. Details on the link:
http://bcfloodfirereview.ca/engagement/

Anyone know if a copy of the report is available on-line that was mentioned in the article?
https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/221084/Flood-response-appropriate
Among, other things, the article mentions groundwater as contributing to the flooding as identified in the report. Duh! I mentioned groundwater as an issue on these forums long ago and pointed out that Ministry of Forests, Land and Natural Resources only ever seemed to mention snow pack and creek flows in identifying flood risk. I've never ever heard them mention anything in the media or elsewhere about groundwater until now. Yet in the spring of 2017, it was evident at least in my area, that large qaunities of ground water were on the move as I saw new springs flowing and old springs with more water than normal. The Ministry I believe vastly underestimated that variable and I would like to see what the report says.

[Urban Cowboy]

So all the time and money spent on this review, simply confirmed what most of us were saying last year already, before the review.

Too much water, too fast?

Well yes that, but even more important the fact that the amount of water being released at Penticton was appropriate based on data and conditions at the time.

[andrea-lake]

This is not the time for complacency. Please see comments under "Monitoring the lake level to avoid flood". The public needs to keep regular watch to make sure they stay on course. Here's a link to the real-time Okanagan Lake Level:

https://wateroffice.ec.gc.ca/report/rea ... ax=&y2Min=

[Urban Cowboy]

There's hardly any need for another thread talking about the same thing, albeit with a modified title.

[Frisk]

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-221928-1-.htm#221928

[andrea-lake]

The City of Kelowna has now joined the Regional District in warning of a potential flood:
https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#221928

This could easily be avoided by lowering the lake to a level of 1.22 cm by Mid-April. That was Mr. Reimer’s stated goal – to draw it down by 0.5 cm per day for 20 days when the lake was at 1.32 cm in early March. After the lake level rose to 1.35 cm from the heavy rainstorm on March 23rd, officials opened the gates at Penticton to increase the discharge slightly from 30 cubic millimetres per second (m3/s) to 37 m3/s. Unfortunately, that’s not enough and the lake level is not dropping sufficiently to reach the target of 1.22 cm by mid-April.

There’s lots of room to increase the discharge at Penticton. During the flood last June, they were able to increase it at Penticton to over 75 m3/s ‎but right now it is only about 35 m3/s. We need preventive action taken before it’s too late.

[Frisk]

I think the weather over the next month will give us a pretty clear idea of what kind of flooding we may be faced with come mid May. Worst case scenario would be a cooler April - mid May with high precipitation followed by a heat wave in late May and into June. Too much melting too quickly is the troublemaker.

[Jhunter199]

So all the time and money spent on this review, simply confirmed what most of us were saying last year already, before the review.

Too much water, too fast?

Im no flood expert, but isnt that how almost all floods manage to happen...

Too much water, too fast