By Dan Walton
Aberdeen Publishing
Although some repairs were made on Sportman’s Bowl Road earlier last week, complete mitigation will not be in place before the 2019 freshet.
Mark Woods, recovery manager with the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen, said structural mitigation is cost prohibitive, and the damage caused along Sportsman’s Bowl during this year’s spring freshet “will require substantial mitigation work,” he said.
The province makes funding available for communities that are dealing with floods, but public funds are not as easy to access for proactive solutions.
“There’s a gap unfortunately,” said Woods. “When it comes to dealing with long-term mitigation – things like structure and design – mitigation is an area that doesn’t have dedicated funding.”
It’s very likely that mitigation would be cost effective for the Park Rill watershed. According to an update posted last week by the RDOS, the area is facing an “imminent” risk of flooding due to high groundwater.
During the 2018 UBCM conference in September, RDOS representatives met with provincial ministers to lobby for adequate funding.
Since then, the regional district has obtained funding through Emergency Management BC to create a flood response assessment of the Park Rill watershed.
“The assessment will review all available options for the management of Park Rill with associated impacts, risks and benefits, as well as cost estimates,” according to the RDOS update. “We anticipate the assessment and final report will be ready by the end of January 2019.”
