The City of Kamloops is in the process of building two large private dykes in the hopes that it will reduce the need to use temporary flood protection measures during the spring freshet.

Utility Services Manager, Greg Wightman, tells NL News these dykes are on McArthur Island and in Riverside Park.

“We have done that on McArthur Island. I think most people that have seen it would just imagine that we put a walkway in there, but that is actually a private dike which is going to protect McArthur Island and all the infrastructure on it to about a one-in-20 year flood level,” he said.

“Same thing at Riverside Park right now, there is a large project going on down there. In doing that, we are certainly increasing the width of Rivers Trail, and we’re building a bunch of other elements into it, but that dike is going to protect us to a one-in-20 level as well.”

Wightman says these structures are defined as private dykes under the Dike Maintenance Act as they only protect one property.

His comments come as the City of Kamloops is preparing for the potential for a severe freshet this year.

The North Thompson snowpack is at about 119 per cent of the seasonal average, the highest its been since 1999, while the South Thompson is at 101 per cent of the seasonal average. However, concern is that it too could actually be closer to that 119 per cent level as there are only four stations across the entire basin reporting data.

The BC River Forecast Centre also says the levels on Shuswap Lake levels have been above average this year, after reaching historic highs over the winter due to the
November’s atmospheric river storms.

“We meet after every freshet season and we have an event debrief with the entire team that was a part of response,” he said. “What we are looking for is just opportunities for continuous improvements.”

“We’re kind of in this transition period between watching the snow basin indexes and starting to look at weather and the BC River Forecast Centre data,” Wightman added.

“Right now, we’ve got very high snowpacks but all that really means at this point is that there is possibility of a severe freshet. If we have favourable weather throughout April, May, into June, then we should be okay.”

Wightman says the flood mitigation component of the $5.1 million project at Riverside Park is expected to be completed by next month.

“It will also make it significantly easier to install temporary flood protection measures if we do need to go beyond that one-in-20 level,” he said.

“So the idea being that we don’t have to be so reliant on Hesco Baskets and if we are, putting those things out and taking them down will be significantly less than the $300,000 that we spent last time that we deployed it.”