High Stream Flow Impacts

It certainly has been a challenging summer after the peak flow and flooding events of late June and early July. As you can see from the two graphs below, the Kiskatinaw flows reached what we term the “10 year return flow ” peaks twice in a two week period – and certainly an anomaly in the history of hydrological records.

Following the events, I undertook two aerial survey on July 13 and 19th of the watershed to investigate possible impacts to our hydrometric guages and record overland flooding and erosion at various locations including industrial sites, and at the Bearhole Lake Weir. This was followed by several days of water quality sampling in the watershed to determine levels of bacteria, turbidity and any contaminants (hydrocarbons). Results indicated excessive turbidity (>peak at 3550 NTUs for June 24-25th and 10,000 NTU’s after July 8-9 event flood events, respectively). Their were 15 days which were in excess of 500 NTU’s (maximum level to allow raw water pumping) during the 25 day period following the first peak flow event thus emphasizing the importance of implementing Water Conservation measures due to the current limited one month existing storage in the Dawson Creek system. Other parameters for bacteria were reported high post-flood but the full sprectrum of hydrocarbon testing did not indicate any levels exceeding acceptable limits.. Additional requests have been to the Oil and Gas Commision were made to review reports on flood impacts for which the City may need to undertake follow-up monitoring.