The County of Barrhead will decide today whether it will declare an agricultural emergency.
Lac Ste. Anne last week declared an agricultural disaster after more than 150 mm of rain fell on the area.
Barrhead County CAO Mark Oberg said councillors would consider the motion at today’s regular meeting. The declaration would mean council acknowledges a disaster is happening with its agricultural land along the rivers, and it would cement council’s support behind the landowners, Oberg said. Insurance could cover part of the losses, and in the past there have been provincial programs to assist agricultural producers. Oberg said he isn’t sure yet whether that will happen again this year, but council is anticipating a positive response.
Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Ken Kowalski was not available for comment.
“It’s true that human life isn’t in any danger, and while the water may creep up, we don’t think it’s going to flood out any of the homes,” Oberg said. “However, there are all kinds of farmland out there, and the crops are done – they’ve been flooded, and they’re done for this year.”
There has been far more rainfall this year, and the critical thing is not how much it rains in Barrhead, but how much it rains in the west, Oberg said. All the rainfall and snowfall that happens in the foothills gets into the rivers and affects municipalities to the west.
“Even if we have dry weather here, we could still have flooding, because it all races down the rivers,” he said.
The County of Barrhead is fortunate to have a dam on the Paddle River, he noted. It was built in the 1980s and is located close to Mayerthorpe in Lac Ste. Anne County. Oberg said flooding has occurred in the area since there have been people here, but then they put in a dyke system to better manage the water. In addition to the dam, the dykes mean normally it doesn’t flood.
“When you get a year where there is significant snowfall and then significant rainfall, then it does flood,” he said. “For residents who rely on their crops and livestock, it’s very serious.”
Flooding has had a major impact on all river systems in the area. As a result, temporary road closures were issued last week for Township Road 584 between Range Road 60 and Range Road 63; Low Level Crossing on Range Road 40 between Highway 18 and Township Road 592; Township Road 615 and Township Road 615A between Range Road 53 and Range Road 5A.
“Some of the roads were right under water,” Oberg said.
Town CAO Martin Taylor said the flood activity has been quite a learning experience. He was told by Environment Alberta that the Paddle River was expected to peak last Thursday, and Taylor said there would definitely be a bit more water in the places where it usually is higher, such as Rotary Park and around lagoon areas.
“We evacuated Rotary Park on the weekend of July 9-10,” he said. “We are updated every few hours by Alberta Environment. We met with them on July 9, and we had anticipated the worst happening July 10, but it’s now July 14 and the river is just expected to crest. It has changed every day.”
The current levels are well below the highs experienced 25 years ago, he said, and it’s difficult to judge, because the water is higher in some areas of the river than in other areas.
The Town received no phone calls from residents complaining about excessive flooding, and staff will continue to monitor along the river, he added.
County Reeve Bill Lee, who raises cattle in the flatlands near the Athabasca River, knows first hand the effects the floods are having on residents.
He is extremely grateful to have neighbours who went above and beyond the call of duty to rescue his 30 cattle when the whole area flooded. When Lee left for Red Deer on July 8 to attend his daughter’s wedding, there was no indication that his cattle would be in any danger.
The Reeve said he moved his cattle onto a new pasture on his flats on July 7.
At the time, the river was a good four feet below the banks.
Then, on July 9, between his daughter’s wedding ceremony and the reception, Lee said he phoned a neighbour to check on his cattle, and he was told that the Athabasca River was going over its banks. A few phone calls later, another neighbour, Al Colp, went to check out the situation.
“He didn’t call back for about three hours, because he was struggling to get the cattle out of that area,” Lee said.
There was a bull, 10 cows and about 20 calves that were being isolated by the river flow going right through the flat, he added.
It was a major stream of water, and at the upper part of Lee’s flat, two rivers meet, and the one river was pushing right into the flat.
He said the stream the cattle would have to cross was well over four feet deep, and probably 50 feet wide. The stream was running fast, and debris was already going by from the river.
“There were a few other smaller streams where Al was able to get the cattle through, because they just did not want to cross that bigger stream,” Lee said. “Al took a fairly newborn calf into the tractor with him and crossed the smaller stream. The calf did its thing and bellowed for its mother. The cow got excited and crossed the stream, and the other cattle followed her across.”
The water level kept rising about a foot an hour, Lee said. Colp went home and then went back later that evening, and the whole area was under water.
“If it wasn’t for Alan and his wife, Linda, those cattle would have been washed away. I was lucky to call the right person who knew what to do.”
Lee said he never would have expected such a situation to occur when he left for Red Deer. He is also a bit frustrated by the lack of current information from Environment Alberta.
When he got home on July 10, with pictures of the entire flat under water, Environment Alberta was still saying the area was only under a flood watch, which means stream levels are rising and will approach or may exceed bank full.
Flooding of areas adjacent to these streams may occur, and anyone situated close to the river is advised to take appropriate precautionary measures.
Had he just went and checked online, Lee said he would have seen that it was only a flood watch, and would not have worried about anything, and his cattle would have been swept out into the river. When all is said and done, Lee said the County will document how everything happened and take note of any shortfalls in the system and deal with it.
“I have talked to other producers in the area, and they are all going through the same thing,” Lee said. “Cattle producers are running out of pasture for their cows, and there are many other problems that will come with this before anything gets better.”
Some producers have lost all of their winter feed supply, and even land that isn’t under water is being affected, he said. The amount of water, coupled with the cloudy, dull days, means crops are stressed, and that will affect yields and production. The hay that is cut is rotting, and the hay that isn’t cut is getting over matured, and it will be like eating sticks, he said.
“We’re not out of this yet.”
The last time the County saw water anywhere near this high was back in 1986, when the Pembina, Athabasca and Paddle rivers all went over their banks, Lee said. It hit the County really hard, because all three rivers flow right through it, but the province stepped up with assistance, and the County hopes they will do so again this time.
“The County will continue between itself and provincial departments to monitor the flood event as it continues,” Oberg said.
Woodlands County is weathering the rain much better than its counterpart in Barrhead. CAO Luc Mercier said in Pride Valley east of Fort Assiniboine, two residents voluntarily evacuated, because they couldn’t gain access to their homes as the roads were flooded right to their property. Furthermore, two campgrounds, one west and the other east of Fort Assiniboine, were also voluntarily evacuated.
“Freeman Park west of Fort Assiniboine was totally inundated with water, and there was about a foot and half to two feet of water throughout the entire campground,” Mercier said. “There was no danger to anyone.”
Woodlands County is pretty much good to go, Mercier said, and the water levels are back down. Crews are still repairing some damage to the roads, but it’s not a significant issue. Numerous roads were closed at different times over the past two weeks throughout the entire County. As of July 14, most of the County’s roads were opened.
“We normally don’t get this kind of weather here; this is kind of extraordinary,” Mercier said.
Environment Canada’s national climate archives website has weather data for a large number of locations across Canada. There is an automatic weather station in Barrhead that has reported since December 2000. According to its data, from July 1 to July 14 of this year, there has been 72.8 mm of rain, with 46.3 mm falling on July 8. The total is far more than the amount of rain that fell in the same time frame last year, when the total precipitation from July 1 to July 31, 2010 was 45.9 mm. The highest recorded amount of rain last year was on July 13 at 24.1 mm.
