Despite lowering river, Kelly says keep flood protection in place

WEST CARLETON – While it seems like the lower Ottawa River is settling, West Carleton-March Coun. Clarke Kelly is recommending riverside residents keep their flood mitigation efforts secure for the coming days.

“We continue to ask residents to retain current sandbag wall protection in place while allowing the city to begin initial demobilization work prior to moving to recovery operations,” Kelly released in a statement May 11. “Recovery operations are currently expected to continue through the end of May or early June.”

The Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board (ORRPB) says the northern melt is slowly ending.

“Spring runoff in the northern part of the basin is slowly receding but remains high,” ORRPB staff released in a statement yesterday (May 13). “Between Mattawa and Pembroke, water levels and flows along the Ottawa River continue to decline slowly.”

As precipitation continues over the central portion of the basin yesterday and today (May 14), the decline in water levels and flows from Lake Coulonge to the Montreal Region is expected to slow down and come to a halt before resuming gradually later next week.

“Because large volumes of water continue to come from the northern part of the basin, water levels along the main stem of the river are expected to remain generally high over the next few days,” the ORRPB said. “The northern part of the basin will remain vulnerable to heavy rainfall events in the coming weeks; therefore, further increases in water levels from Mattawa to Lake Coulonge due to high spring runoff cannot be ruled out.”

Ottawa River measurements at Lake Deschenes at Britannia were 59.50 metres yesterday with a flow of 3,300 cubic metres per second. The ORRPB predicts that level and flow will remain consistent at least until Saturday, May 16.

“The Ottawa River has continued to decrease at a slowed rate as water flows from the northern portion of the basin to the Carillon outlet,” Kelly said. “The Ottawa area continues to have a flood watch in effect due to these elevated conditions which are set to expire on May 19. Currently, water levels have continued to decline and are roughly midway between 1:5 and moving toward 1:2 levels as of (May 13) morning. As a result of these positive trends, the freshet response team have started work on recovery planning.”

Kelly says residents should leave protections as is.

“Until further notice, we are asking people to maintain any sandbag wall protection already in place on private property for the short term,” he said. “Recovery planning is underway and will occur in multiple phases.”