M.D. to talk to landowners for possible solutions to Muriel Creek water flow problems

The M.D. is moving on the Muriel Creek drainage area.

M.D. Council approved the continuation of the Muriel Creek Restoration Project last week at their Jan. 30 meeting and authorized the administration to negotiate with local landowners for solutions to the Muriel Creek water flow problems.

Reeve Greg Sawchuk said the survey looked at the areas where water might be held up.

“It did identify a number of places along the way. Administration was basically asking council for permission essentially to talk to the landowners and look at some of those spots where there’s bottlenecks, where the water has been held up,” said Reeve Greg Sawchuk.

“You can imagine when you have, I think it’s 8-10km and it’s not a whole lot of elevation change, that it doesn’t take much of an obstruction for water to back up for kilometres. We’ve seen that in the spring and after big rainfalls.

“It’s getting out there and talking to landowners and seeing how they can work with them and keep the water moving,” said Sawchuk.

A survey was completed in 2018 to develop a plan to be initiated to prevent future flooding of land in the Charlotte Lake, Barreyre Lake, and Muriel Creek systems.

The survey has identified all the blocked problem areas. Some issues will be the responsibility of landowners in the area to fix, the M.D. says.

The M.D. will contract out the initial flood mitigation work in 2019 and continue with the second stage of work in 2020.