In Deep Water

Residents of Country Lane Estates deal with flooding from quick spring melt

The Municipal District of Bonnyville (MD) was busy over the past few days dealing with quick spring melt off that caused one subdivision to go underwater.

Residents of Country Lane Estates reported that deep water began to pool on their properties over the weekend, with the MD coming to relief on Monday and Tuesday.

“We had crews out there, last night and today. We’ve managed to get the water pumped down, so that we can actually get into the manholes and do some work,” confirmed Darcy Zelisko, Director of Transportation & Waste, for the MD.

“The roads are now clear, the water is just in the ditch.”

One resident, Deyne Hogan said she had been worried her home would undergo water damage. She had contacted the MD Sunday morning, “the MD had been working on it during the day with two water trucks and we had one pump running.”

Despite their efforts the water was taking over the area, still on Monday afternoon.

Another resident, Kale Hawco, reported that his basement was flooded with four or more feet of water. On Monday morning, Hawco said relief was slowly coming in. However, his power had to be turned off because the water was too close to the electrical panel.

Hogan explained, “Atco Electric came around and said they would try not to turn off the power,” at that time her power remained on.

Zelisko said to his knowledge there was only one residence that flooded.

“We did pump some water out a basement for one [resident]. I’m not sure about the site elevation, or how that was set in the first place. That’s one of the things that we’re going to look into to see what the remedies will be, as we go forward.”

“It was a combination of lawn debris and the thaw freeze cycle,” explained Zelisko, “we’d get a little bit of melt and then it would freeze again, that drove the frost down even further and contributed to the spring melt and made it even worse.”

The MD of Bonnyville used two water trucks, multiple pumps and trackhoe doing excavating, for some surface draining for the overflow and a grader clearing some roadways and approached. The MD welcomed help from the City of Cold Lake, who lent a pump.

There have been a few other areas in the MD that have experience high water levels, however none that have flooded like County Lane Estate did this season.

“Last year, with the snow melt, we had some issues up at Pine Meadows, Birch Grove, and Moose Lake. We went ahead and did some rather extensive drainage work in both of those areas, last year,” Zalisko said the work that was done last year appears to have remedied most of the problems, “we received virtually no calls or concerns, from those areas, this year.”

The MD will work on solutions to help prevent any future flooding.

Country Lane Estates is a development just outside the City of Cold Lake. It was first developed over ten years ago and other than some minor water issues last spring there has not been any flooding of this nature at the development, said Zalisko.