Authorities in the Pemberton Valley are planning to remove a Birkenhead River logjam they believe was one of the major reasons for flooding in low-lying areas in and around the old Mount Currie townsite earlier this month.

The work, which could be carried out as soon as this weekend (July 31 and Aug. 1), is to be done by helicopter and will involve the removal of large logs that have lodged themselves along one shore of the river just north of the Continental Log Homes facility — a.k.a. the “pole yard” — changing the river’s flow.

Ryan Wainwright, recently hired as emergency program manager for the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD), on Thursday (July 22) said that while other problems are believed to have contributed to frequent flooding of lands both on and off the Mount Currie Reserve in recent years, removal of the logjam is viewed as a first step in the mitigation process.

“This is step one. Our response to that change in flows (in the area) is to remove the logjam to give us some breathing room,” Wainwright said. “Next we need to look at what else can be done to alleviate problems there in the future.”

In early July, a number of properties were under a metre or more of water from spring runoff. Eight residents of the Lake Road area on the Mount Currie Reserve were evacuated from their homes, while others were bailing or pumping water back into nearby waterways in attempts to save their gardens and other assets.

At the time, residents said the flooding had become more frequent since the flood of 2003 and demanded action on the part of local authorities.

In a statement posted July 19 on the Lil’wat Nation’s Facebook page, Mount Currie Band (Lil’wat Nation) officials spelled out the nature and severity of the problem.

“Since the end of May our community has been subject to high waters which have resulted in the evacuation of four homes (eight individuals) and the flooding of Highway 99 on at least four separate occasions,” the post read. “We have standing water on at least 10 properties which has destroyed crops, submersed septic tanks and caused an above-average population of mosquitoes.”

Wainwright admitted the number of jurisdictions and overlapping areas of responsibility has meant that the SLRD and Mount Currie Band (Lil’wat Nation) have had to get the B.C. Ministry of Environment (MOE), Emergency Management B.C., Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and the Pemberton Valley Dyking District involved.

“Because it’s happening in a river, it introduces a whole level of complication,” he said. “It’s the environmental impacts that you’re worried about, and you want to make sure you’re operating in a window when you’re not harming fisheries. There are a lot of agencies involved who have to work together and come up with a solution.”

At Monday's (July 26) SLRD board meeting, Area C Director Susie Gimse said that when district staff contacted MOE about removal of the logjam, they were told that local government was responsible for its removal.

Gimse and Paul Edgington, SLRD administrator, said that until now, their understanding was that the Province does have some responsibility, but that MOE officials' response signalled that there may have been a change to that situation that needs to be clarified.

“We’ve never had that conversation with the Province, whereby they’ve completely downloaded river management to the regional district,” Gimse said.

Edgington said MOE officials appeared to indicate that they no longer have responsibility for river management. He has said he has tried to explain that the regional district would need to create a service and get elector assent to take on river management responsibilities.

“There seems to be a lack of understanding of regional district service establishment among provincial officials,” he said.

He said when he suggested that the SLRD might decide to declare a local state of emergency to address the problem, provincial officials indicated that they would cancel such a declaration.

The Mount Currie Band and other agencies are also taking action on reserve lands to reduce the frequency and severity of flooding.

The band and B.C. Ministry of Transportation have been working on ditches near the highway to improve drainage along the Grandmother Slough corridor, Frank Andrew, the band’s public works manager, told The Question on Thursday.

“The Ministry of Transportation has cleared some ditching along Highway 99 and Grandmother Slough. That’s almost compete now,” Andrew said.

As well, band officials are working to clear Pasture Creek — a canal that has long served as a flood-relief channel for waters from Grandmother Slough to flow back into the Birkenhead. According to the Lil’wat Facebook post, “over the years (Pasture Creek) has not been maintained and as a result has become a series of ponds through which water does not flow.”

The work along Pasture Creek “will involve the construction of an overflow ditch from the slough, under Rancheree Road and into the wetlands in the Band Pasture. We hope that this work will start this week,” the post stated.

Said Andrew, “We’ve been trying to get these projects going since 2003, when it became a yearly issue.”

The Lil’wat Nation Facebook post stated that the actions being taken now only offer “short-term relief” to those affected by the flooding. The post stated that the larger problems are “something that will have to be looked at on a much broader scale” before long-term solutions can be found.

“The major thing we need is really the dyking of the Birkenhead up to Grandmother Slough,” Andrew said. “We have dyking partway through the pole yard there, so below that the river just goes where it wants to go.”

— With files from Megan Grittani-Livingston, The Question