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Brink Forest Products Boss Would Like to Know What's Going On
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By 250 News
Thursday, December 13, 2007 02:23 PM
"I have checked the Emergency Measures Site, I have bought an emergency kit, I have the bottle of water and the flash light, now would someone tell me what is going on?"
Those are the comments of John Brink of Brink Forest Products who has seen his operation shut down as a result of the flooding of the NechakoRiver in the area of his business."Bob Simpson , the NDP MLA dropped by yesterday" Brink said , "but I have yet to hear from anyone in the city, the Province or any other organization, other than someone calling to say that it wasn’t his department that was involved in this flood."
"What are we doing, what have we considered doing to eliminate this problem, have we learned anything,?" Brink says those are all questions he would like answered. Instead he says "I read in the media that we will just have to wait until it gets warm and the ice melts. "
"Who for example makes the decision about whether we should cut a path around the jam to allow the water to flow?Who makes the decision if we should use explosives to break the jam? Who’s the person that makes the decision that we all should sit around and wait for the weather to warm up? That’s what I want to know."
Brink is not happy, "All these people, and I would like to know what they are doing, if anything."
Earlier today the Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Alberta, Dr Faye Hicks, said so little is known of the affects of adding a large amount of water into a river system that is forming major frazzle ice on the bottom of the river during extreme cold that it is very hard to say what may have caused the flood on the Nechako in Prince George.
Dr Hicks says there has been very little study done in this regard to see what the frazzle (anchor ice) does when you add a major increase in flow of water." Does an additional large flow of water entered into the system have an affect, very likely", but she added "I would be hard pressed to say how much without a proper study of the issue. There is so little knowledge available right now on the problem that you have in your flood ."
The last flood that occurred on the Nechako River took place during the winter of 1997 at around the same time when Alcan ( Rio Tinto) released a major flow of water into the Skins Lake spillway causing an ice jam to form in Prince George with the result of a flood along the North Nechako. This time around the ice jam formed near the confluence of the Nechako and the Fraser River.
Alcan increased the discharge from the Skins Lake by more than 300% on or about November 22 the company increased its flows from the spillway from 15 cubic meters per second to 84 cubic meters per second. Some flooding has been reported in Vanderhoof.
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