233067
232830

Penticton  

'A very delicate situation'

Colton Davies

Flood issues are persisting at Twin Lakes, where the lower lake in the community has risen by about nine feet since it fully thawed on April 18.

Nine homes along Lower Twin Lake were evacuated on Tuesday night as a precaution, due to the possibility of a breach in the lakeshore's armouring.

On Wednesday, about 70 military personnel were on scene to shore up the gabion wall holding back the lake from those nine homes.

Since Friday, 40 to 80 military members have been at Twin Lakes each day to help strengthen the reinforcements. Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan toured the area on Monday, after B.C.'s parliamentary secretary of emergency preparedness paid a visit on Sunday.

Lower Twin Lake is currently nine-and-a-half feet above its normal level and has no natural outflow.

"It's a very delicate situation," Coral Brown says, chairperson of the Lower Nipit Improvement District.

Brown supervises the water level in Lower Twin Lake, and she says it’s been a bit draining to watch the water slowly creep to where it is now over recent weeks.

She says minimal amounts of water are currently being moved out with two pumps — one of which was set up late on Tuesday.

"It's pumping we think about an inch a day, with the pump that's on. That would take 180 days, that takes us to January to just get down to sort of normal levels," Brown says. "But we still need to remove probably... 15 feet of water in order to have room for the freshet of 2019."

If there’s one bright spot, it’s that the lake’s rise has slowed down in recent days.

On Tuesday, the lake rose by 0.42 inches — giving some optimism that the community could be getting ahead of the flood outlook.

The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen says the Park Rill watershed, which flows into the Sportsmens Bowl area, can expect to see slightly more water due to the slight raise in the pumping efforts upstream.



More Penticton News



232391