Castanet is revisiting the top stories of an eventful 2022. Today, for our environment story of the year, we look back at the B.C. Interior’s flood recovery, after an atmospheric river hit communities hard the year before.
It was a year of costly rebuilding, as Interior towns, homes and major highways were left decimated by flooding in November 2021 — an event that, while unprecedented at the time, climate scientists warn may become increasingly normal.
Crews raced to install temporary repairs at washed-out sections of the Coquihalla Highway — the main artery from the Interior to the coast. It reopened to the public in January 2022 after many weeks of only essential and commercial traffic allowed.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure announced at the end of March it was moving ahead with permanent road repairs, hoping to return the highway to four lanes between the summit and 50 kilometres south of Merritt.
Movement on those repairs came when contract applications were opened in June. Work soon followed at three sites in the fall — Bottletop Bridges, Juliet Bridges and Jessica Bridges.
There were 23 damaged areas along the highway, including 15 sites where both lanes were lost and four sites where a single lane was down for repair.
Highway 8, the hardest-hit Interior highway during the 2021 floods, had a longer recovery period.
It was officially reopened in November 2022 after ‘unbelievable’ work from crews repaired the missing highway sections and installed two temporary bridges. The reopening of Highway 8 between Merritt and Spences Bridge would reconnect a number of isolated communities along the route.
On Dec. 16, the Coquihalla reopened to four lanes following the completion of temporary repairs at three bridge sites, which was a major milestone.
Officials said work will continue throughout the winter and late into 2023 to complete permanent repairs.
In the Similkameen Valley, the Town of Princeton had an uphill battle all year trying to secure funding to rebuild, estimating $10 million was needed for recovery as of January.
The Disaster Financial Assistance program set up by the province works on an 80/20 basis — the province pays 80 per cent, and the municipality pays the remainder.
In February, Princeton's Member of Parliament Dan Albas brought up the issue in the House of Commons, asking Prime Minister Trudeau to commit to helping flood-affected communities like Princeton and Merritt with recovery well out of their cost range.
The town finally got some relief after it was awarded $11.9 million in provincial funding in April, with a total of $53.6 million being split between 10 B.C. communities.
As spring arrived, snow pack melt was well behind schedule in the Okanagan and Similkameen due to a colder-than-average spring, and further unsettled weather meant the flood outlook was uncertain.
Early in summer, flooding concerns were mounted by food watches for the Okanagan and Boundary regions. High streamflow advisories covered an even wider area, including the middle Fraser, Thompson and Similkameen rivers.
Properties on evacuation alert were scattered across the province too, including areas around Smithers, Terrace, Tulameen and Grand Forks.
The Tulameen River started seeing erosion occur along river banks from rising waters and heavy rain in the Interior.
The flood concern eventually passed for the year. Now, Interior communities like Princeton and Merritt are left to try and prepare for increasingly unpredictable disasters.
Merritt was awarded nearly $330,000 from the provincial government to fund flood-hazard mapping and the development of new flood mitigation plans.
The one drawback is that for areas affected, like the town of Princeton, these investigations take time, leaving a question mark on this year's environmental challenges.
Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne said this isn’t the province's fault, but rather just the situation at hand.
Both the Similkameen and Tulameen rivers saw changes as a result of the floods, impacting the previous mapping.
“Right now we're working on the assumptions and I know it's scary to work on assumptions, but we're working on the assumptions that the local knowledge that we have is correct. We've been monitoring the river very closely, watching behavioural patterns and whatnot, the channel has moved a bit,” Coyne said.
Merritt marked its one-year anniversary since the floods with one big concern still top of mind: Preventing a similar flood in the future.
"In the mitigation phase, you build infrastructure so events like this don't happen again," said City of Merritt recovery manager Sean Strang. "So if the river floods to that level we won't have 600-plus houses that are flooded out and affected."
But mitigation programs on that scale often need federal funding, which Strang said was not made available to them.
"There was one big program that was available and that is how Grand Forks in 2018 got their rebuilding money. Their rebuilding funding of $50.2 million dollars was announced on their one-year anniversary. At this point we have heard nothing from the federal government except that the program is closed and there is no other programs available for flood mitigation," Strang said.
Merritt is still relying on temporary dykes, which makes Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz anxious.
"Anytime you got snow on the ground the weather here could change very quickly," Goetz said in November.
"We still have one of the dykes that the military put up, which we will be leaving up because we may need it. I don't think we will, but it is a sad state of affairs when we are a year in and we still have received no idea on the funding."
In Princeton, the one-year anniversary of the floods pointed to many hidden hardships. Homes and apartment buildings were still in disrepair. Potable water is still unavailable for many residents, awaiting permitting to get the infrastructure construction going.
“Probably 60-plus per cent of our community has no drinking water still. And if it's because of red tape. That's a problem, right? The province has given us the money to fix the problem. Now it's another arm of the province that's saying, 'You got to do this, this and this,'” Coyne said.
“My staff keep telling me ‘Okay, we're gonna get there.’ But, I'm frustrated and the residents are frustrated. And we need to find a way to fast-track some of these things as long as they're done right.”
Both mayors called out the need for federal funding to be provided to fix the damages of the past and provide safety for the future.
But the wait on all repairs didn’t stop some organizations from problem-solving. Thousands of salmon were able to reach an important spawning habitat this fall after a collaborative project that saw a channel carved around a log jam formed on the Coldwater River south of Merritt after last year’s floods.
The Pacific Salmon Foundation tackled damage caused by the giant log jam, located near the Coquihalla Highway’s Juliet Creek Bridge, halfway between Merritt and Hope.
A flight over the area last month showed coho salmon stuck downstream of the log jam, which was blocking the fish from accessing their spawning habitat — an area that avoided major flooding impacts.
Jason Hwang, vice president of salmon programs, said in the wake of last year’s floods, a working group made up of representatives from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the provincial government, First Nations and non-government entities — including the Pacific Salmon Foundation — has been monitoring impacts to the river and working to intervene when necessary.
Crews worked to add a small bypass channel around the log jam and the coho started moving through.
Climate scientists continue to emphasize that natural disasters will occur with greater frequency in the future, and it is important to plan and be prepared.
