Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adam Donnelly

CLIMATE CHANGE

Report highlights the strengths and weaknesses of BC’s flood preparedness

Aug 7, 2020 | 4:52 PM

KAMLOOPS — On Thursday, the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo released a report on the effects of climate change on flooding in Canada.

The report took a look at the flood preparedness of all the provinces and territories across the country. Each province and territory was then assigned a letter grade, based on how well prepared they were to deal with floods.

CFJC Today spoke with the lead author of the report and found out B.C. is doing well in some areas of flood preparedness while lacking in others.

“This study focused on the prominent cost to Canada: flooding.”

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Dr. Blair Feltman is the head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo. On Thursday, the Centre released a report on how ready Canadian provinces are to deal with flooding. Overall, British Columbia is doing a pretty good job, garnering a C+ score.

“You might say, ‘Well a C+, that doesn’t sound very exciting,’” Feltman says. “[C+] is towards the higher end of the scoring range for the country.”

B.C. scored well in areas like how it builds flood preparedness into new communities, and the readiness of its infrastructure to handle flooding. However, there were some significant weaknesses in the province’s efforts to mitigate flood damage.

“Number one is the current flood plain maps in British Columbia are about 20 years old – 20 years out of date,” Feltmate explains. “Secondly, the province defers to the municipalities, their discretion, as to whether or not a building or development can occur on flood plains, or in flood risk areas.”

Trevor Bohay is with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO). He says after the flooding that occurred in 2017, his ministry has been working to update flood plain maps in the region.

“The province took the opportunity to undertake LIDAR (Light Deleting and Ranging) mapping in many of the areas we saw a great deal of flooding, to learn from the issues we were presented with,” Bohay tells CFJC Today.

Despite that work, the weaknesses the report alleges have been exposed at Stump Lake, where some homes have been lost due to an unprecedented rise in the level of the lake. According to Bohay, that rise is part of the lake’s natural cycle.

“These oscillations don’t happen on a five-year basis. They happen on such a large scale that it sort of usurps people’s memories,” Bohay explains. “People will say ‘Hey, we lived here our whole lives and we’ve never had high water,’ yet we have photographs from 1890 at Stump Lake showing water as high as it is now.”

David Laird, the TNRD Area Director for Stump Lake says that new information isn’t much help to homeowners who are fighting to save their homes.

“I know I’ve talked to a couple of the homeowners there and they said they never would have built where they are had they any indication the lake was going to come up 14 feet,” Laird says.

If the water level isn’t reduced significantly before winter, next year’s spring melt will be even worse for property owners at Stump lake. Dr. Feltmate fears issues like this will affect more Canadians unless something is done to address climate change.

“You look in the rearview mirror and you see a large tractor-trailer coming up behind you at twice your speed. It’s not good enough you’re going in the right direction, you’ve got to speed up,” Feltmate says. “Right now, that tractor-trailer is climate change.”