FLOOD COSTS MAY NOT BE ALL THAT HIGH FOR GOVERNMENTS

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

BRACEBRIDGE — Amid the crisis and chaos of the flooding, which could yet get worse in the days ahead — especially to the west in Bala and on the Moon River — Muskoka taxpayers will be interested to learn that the government costs may not amount to as much as most would think.

However, in terms of personal loss, there is no price you can put on human suffering and property loss.

That’s an early, very preliminary assessment by one top Muskoka bureaucrat.

Michael Duben, CAO  for the District of Muskoka, told Bracebridge-Muskoka Lakes Rotarians at their weekly Tuesday morning 7 a.m. meeting at the Quality Inn that some of those costs could still be recovered through provincial assistance programs.

He said provincial changes over the years have also made it not necessary to apply early during such a crisis as flooding, to benefit later on once the waters return to more normal levels.

Then the province will come in and make an assessment for any funding assistance requests.

Bracebridge, Huntsville, Muskoka Lakes Township and the District of Muskoka have all declared emergencies.

He said those powers do not impinge of public rights.

Duben said the province realized it didn’t make sense for municipal officials to take time and resources away from assisting citizens in the community to deal with paperwork.

So, declaring a local emergency is more about town and township CAOs being authorized to approve certain appropriate emergency spending expenditures without going to councils for their approval beyond a budget.

It also allows them to make staffing changes as necessary in terms of possible overtime that may conflict with union collective bargaining agreements.

However, he said, aside from obvious costs of sandbagging and — in Bracebridge at least the cost of building up a section of Beaumont Drive — the financial side may not end up mounting to big, big dollars.

And emergency relief centres, staffed by volunteers, have fortunately not been used by less than a handful of people.

But that’s just a very early observation — a snap shot from a district perspective, although he said he has sat in on numerous municipal Emergency Operations Centre meetings the past week.

He said no numbers have been crunched.

Right now, he said during an update that included a brief slide presentation, the emphasis is on helping people.

Duben said each morning at 9 a.m. the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) issues data on the previous day’s water levels called flow reports.

 

And as of early Tuesday morning it looks like up toward Huntsville the flows are coming down on the north and south branches of the Muskoka River, which merge in Bracebridge, before flowing into Lake Muskoka. But that rain is on the way Wednesday and Friday, which he and other Muskoka officials will be closely monitoring.

He did note there is some concern there is a “pinch point” in Bala, where all the water ends up en route to Georgian Bay where it empties into.

Duben said that because the south branch of the river has a larger flow, it keeps the north branch from emptying.

One area of particular concern right now is the Beaumont Farm area, west of Bracebridge.

This morning, some of the 100 army troops called in to assist, were there to help shore up properties and bring sand bags from the Fowler Construction works yard where other troops are reportedly filling 16,000 bags a day since beginning to arrive Sunday.

Farther out on Beaumont Drive has been under water for more than a week, and is closed to only local traffic.

A district works employee was stopping vehicles Tuesday morning to inform them at where the TransCanada Pipeline crosses the road and where there a snowmobile bridge is located. The worker said he has no power to stop people, but he just makes them aware of the road conditions ahead.

Duben said Beaumont Drive was built up in recent days in a low-lying area. He said they used some level two grade aggregate to lift the road base.

However, it was still covered in more than a foot of water Tuesday.

Duben showed a map that showed more than two dozen road closures of various degrees across Muskoka.

Santa’s Village Road, across the river from Beaumont Drive, remained still partially closed after several days near Santa’s Village Road.

The Town of Bracebridge is constantly issuing road and emergency updates throughout the day — often almost hardly an hour apart.

Duben said Springdale Park in east Bracebridge is also heavily affected by the spring freshet flooding.

Rotarians also noted that Kelvin Grove Park was also flooded, along with its boat launch.

He also cautioned people who have taken to the waters to observe conditions to be careful.

Some jet-ski operators have gotten close to properties and created dangerous wakes, which can crash into and over sand bags.

He called them “idiots.”

He said the district can’t enforce that and the OPP don’t have boats out yet either.

Duben did want to recognize the resilience of Muskokans and he praised those “hearty” people, especially for their outreach and for their outstanding volunteer response within all the communities.

One thing he said he plans to pursue during a post mortem, is his concern about the sand bag situation, given the flood of 2013.

He can’t understand why they ran out of bags that led to a shortage of sand bags when it they were so desperately needed early on.

“Why didn’t we have bags” in reserve or storage.

He said they just had thousands more delivered Monday night.

And he expects between 50,000 and 150,000 bags could be used in the end.

One Rotarian asked about disposing of the bags afterwards.

Duben said he expects the district could wave some tipping fees at its landfills, the way it has for limited durations during damaging wind and rain storms in the past.

A problem is that not all sand bags are equal in terms of the kind of sand in them.

He said Fowler provided clean sand. But some sand bags may contain salty sand, and that will have to be environmentally dealt with differently.

Luckily all the sand bags are made of plastic, which can be recycled.

Duben concluded by saying that the district will also undertake to do more testing this year around septic systems near waterways that may have been affected by overflow flooding. Particularly at areas populated by the public and at community beaches.

He also said the district’s water system has not been impacted and that if you get your water from the district there should be no problem.