By Dylana Milobar

City hopes new online service will reduce catch basin clogging

Mar 9, 2019 | 7:31 AM

KAMLOOPS  — The City of Kamloops hopes a new online tool will give residents a fighting chance to prevent flooding on the streets when the winter snow begins to melt away.

Utility Services Manager Greg Wightman says they are gearing up for a potential backlog of water with the coming snowmelt.

“We’ve had crews out for a couple weeks here preparing for this warming trend, and definitely next week is going to be a challenge for sure,” He explains, “It’s looking like some potential rain even on Monday, which is when we have the real problems, with the rain falling on the snow.”

One of the big issues crews deal with when melting occurs is the catch basins becoming clogged or not draining properly.

“Our crews have been doing what they can to open up the catch basins along the major streets,” Wightman says, “But with 6,800 catch basins in this town, we’re not going to get to them all (right away).”

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To combat that problem, Wightman says the city has new technology to show people where those basins are.

“We’ve developed a new tool that residents can use at www.kamloops.ca/flooding and you go to that page and you can actually open up this tool, and it’ll show you where the nearest catch basin is to your house.”

The feature will give residents a chance to take action and not only help out their neighbours, but keep their own property from being damaged.

“They are critical pieces of infrastructure,” Wightman explains, “When the snow starts melting, we’ve got to make sure the snow is going in to the catch basins, as it’s designed, and not down driveways.”

Along with showing where catch basins are located, Wightman says the website also explains how to clear snow away from them.

“The more we can do to have people out looking after their own properties or helping out their neighbours, that’s why this tool is going to be so valuable this year.”