By Greg Fry

Flooding remains a concern in Cache Creek; village requests study to determine the cause

May 4, 2018 | 2:43 PM

CACHE CREEK — Flood concerns remain top of mind in Cache Creek.

Mayor John Ranta says Cache Creek is still running through the culvert though there’s concern things may change soon.

“It is a warm day so we’re apprehensive that in the early evening between five and 10 o’clock the river level can come up with the flood waters coming down Cache Creek so we’ll wait to see how that goes,” he says.

“We’ve still got all the protection along the banks in place and we’re using an excavator to remove what is an accumulation of sand and gravel that has come down the river just in front of the culvert under Quartz Road.”

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As far as the Bonaparte River goes, he says it seems to be “holding its own at the moment” and notes they may be in a situation where they’ll wait for the normal high water in the Bonaparte River which happens the end of May, early June typically.

In the meantime, he says he’s asked Emergency Management BC for answers to determine what’s exactly causing the high flood levels.

“I know they’re experiencing it in the Okanagan and elsewhere in the province but we’ve never seen anything like this over the past couple of years,” Ranta says.

“We need to have an expert come study the situation in the watershed of Cache Creek to determine what sort of mitigation we can identify, whether diverting some of the water into Dairy Lake or some other lake above Cache Creek or putting some kind of control structure in place so we can regulate the flow of water.”

And with flooding occurring three of the past four years, he says locals are fed up.

He says the village has also applied for up to $750,000 to replace the culvert under Quartz Road through a program administered by the Union of BC Municipalities.