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Vol. 90 Issue 26 • Wednesday, June 26, 2013 • www.arrowlakesnews.com • 250-265-3823 • $1.25 •
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Flooding and washouts damage homes, close highways Black Press
Last week’s heavy rains triggered slides and flooding that closed highways around Kaslo, B.C. and wreaked havoc on houses and bridges in the region on Thursday, June 20. Highway 31A between Kaslo and New Denver was closed due to flooding and washouts. The highway was reopened to single lane traffic that afternoon, with half-hour delays expected. A debris slide at the Lardeau Bluffs, approximately 27 km north of Kaslo closed Highway 31, and the area reopened later that day. Also, approximately 13 km north of Kaslo, Schroder Creek overwhelmed its banks and has flooded the highway. As of Monday afternoon, the highway was open to single-lane at that location. “Over the past day and night this area has received over 80mm of rain. There has been a significant rainfall warning issued for the West Kootenay area which anticipates heavy rainfall to continue throughout today,” said Darrell Gunn in a statement released on June 20, District
Operations Manager with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure for the West Kootenay District. “This may result in increased stream and river levels so please be careful around all fast moving water.” More information regarding possible opening times will become available, and up to date information can be found at www.Drivebc.ca. Homes have also been impacted by the high water levels. The Regional District of Central Kootenay is assessing damage following heavy rain last week that damaged two homes north of Argenta and caused problems around the region. A double wide trailer on Hamill Creek floated downstream and another home is being eroded at its foundation. Emergency social services is trying to contact everyone in the area. “Obviously that’s going to be an issue in making sure those people are okay and have water,” information officer Bill Macpherson said. Although no people were in the
trailer when the bank eroded, Macpherson said there may have been some pets. The Hamill Creek bridge’s approaches on both sides have been washed out and one resident evacuated to the north side. Power lines were in the creek. The bridge led to five homes and Glacier Creek regional park on Duncan Lake, where an unknown number of campers were staying. The park is now inaccessible and has been closed. It’s been a dramatic few days in the West Kootenay with heavy rains causing slides, washouts, closing roads and bridges, leaving people isolated and damaging homes. But it seems conditions are settling down, said Bill Macpherson, information officer with the RDCK. “Barring any unexpected heavy rains, which are not forecasted, everything should slowly return to normal,” he said Saturday morning. The Regional District of Central Kootenay activated its emergency operations centre Thursday with flooding
The bridge across Hamill Creek is all that is left after heavy flooding through the region. Photo courtesy P.Jordan, BC Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations
mostly a concern in and around Kaslo. It was deactivated Friday night, said Macpherson. The forecast for next week includes rain showers with heavy downpours like those falling last week not expected. Most water systems in the region have peaked and are dropping slowly.
Green workshop comes to energize Nakusp residents Claire paradis Arrow Lakes News
Three speakers brought different levels of focus on green energy possibilities to the Nakusp and Area Arena on Monday, June 17. From the micro to the macro, different aspects of contemporary projects taking place in rural community were discussed. Ms. Brandt from the Green Energy Development Tool Project kicked off the evening with an introduction to the project and what it can offer small communities interested in getting green energy projects off the ground. Working with green businesses to identify and implement action plans and create and circulate information about green resources and tools are part of the project’s mandate, and they work with Columbia Basin Trust and the Southern Interior Beetle Action
Coalition (SIBAC) as well as other partners to make it happen. Nakusp’s Green Energy Workshop was one of the events that the project has made happen. Don Scarlett, an electrical engineer from Kaslo who has worked on dozens of small micro-hydro projects brought his expertise to the auditorium, showing slides and discussing several different runof-river works. Scarlett pointed out that micro-hydro are ideal for this area where there are many small creeks and rivers that run with enough force to turn a small turbine and create power. Remote dwellers not on the grid, remote operations like helpski outfits and net metering (selling back to the grid) are three scenarios where the benefits of setting up a micro-hydro system are clear. But investment with a small system takes time to pay off, Scarlett cautioned, so don’t look for a
quick-fix solution. It can take eight to ten years to start getting the pay off from the investment, meaning the project is great if you’ve settled in a place for the long haul. The engineer illustrated different issues and innovations involved in various projects, emphasizing each project is unique and created on a case-by-case basis. Projects can be as simple as a pump run in reverse or a generator involving a Pelton wheel. Whether to use a settling tank or a hydro screen, plastic or metal piping, depends on the amount of water, the force, the vertical drop to the generator and other factors that are all situation dependent. People interested in investing in a micro-hydro system should monitor the flow of their water source over a year so they know what the volume is like. It will vary from year to year, said Scarlett, but even a rough idea will help in figuring
out an appropriate project. Marian Marinescu was up next with a discussion of forest biomass energy systems in small communities. Marinescu stressed that robustness, reliability and a manageable degree of complexity were more important than financial projections for different types of biomass systems. He compared a biomass project which might reach profitability sooner but which requires a steam engineer, a specialist that is generally hard to find, to a system that has less complexity and would take longer to pay for itself but would be easier to run. Marnescu also said there was a shift in thinking about the energy put into collection, preparation and transportation of fuel for biomass projects, putting the number at far less than that for other kinds of energy. The keys to success, he told the
audience, were the creation of a community biomass plan where the community was engaged in the planning, and a feasible and realistic project. Long term good quality biomass sources that can be harvested sustainably (with respect for both the forest and people, said Marinescu) are the basis of any good biomass project. David Dubois from the Wood Waste to Rural Heat Project started off by letting the audience know that there is enough residual wood from forestry to sustain a local biomass project for a long time to come, even with biomass left onsite to keep nutrients in the soil. For more on the WW2RH read about Dubois’ meeting in Nakusp in Possiblity of Nakusp biomass project discussed in the April 24 issue of the Arrow Lakes News or online at http://www.arrowlakesnews.com/news/205264881. html.
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