As the spring snow melt approaches, Kamloops city staff say they are in constant talks with operators of irrigation dams that flow into local creeks.
Utility services manager Greg Wightman says the flows in those creeks are increasing, and usually peak in the first week of May.
“So around town, that includes things like Noble Creek, Campbell Creek, Heffley (Creek) and Peterson (Creek). These creeks being small in size and lower in elevation very quickly impacted by weather events and spring rainstorms. So if we see a rainstorm in town, almost within that same day we’ll start to see these creeks swell. Which is much different than the bigger rivers where you have a bigger lag time.”
Wightman says dam operators at lakes like Jacko Lake, Heffley Lake, Shumway Lake and others that drain into local creeks are able to relay good information on water levels and snowpack levels during this crucial period of time.
“It’s a bit of a challenge for all these dam operators, because they are responsible for the irrigation that the dams are there to provide. So they don’t want to let too much water out because they need to maintain irrigation for the crops throughout the course of summer, but they also try to let out enough water that we don’t have these major floods downstream in our small creeks.”
Meanwhile, Wightman says as of this week city staff have begun weekly monitoring of city-owned dykes for when river levels rise.
“As the river levels rise, we then transition to a daily inspection. And this is one of those challenges that we’re going to see with COVID this year,” he says.
“Because the way that we do this is, we have two staff in a vehicle, we break up the dykes into various areas and we have about 13 teams of staff that go out and do these inspections. Now obviously with the COVID restrictions we can’t have two staff in a vehicle, so we’ve had to completely change the way that we are going to approach it this year because of COVID.”
He points out that everything the city is hearing the province is that “Kamloops is one of the most concerning locations in the province this year, as far as this freshet season.”
The peak on the North Thompson River typically is in early June, and the South Thompson River usually peaks two-to-four weeks later, but Wightman says there have been years when both rivers have peaked at or near the same time.
