The City of Quesnel will move forward with a plan to relocate the sewer mainline that was damaged in the April 2020 spring freshet away from Baker Creek.
“This plan will result in a sewer mainline which will have a much lower risk of future damage and a lower risk of potential environmental damage from future breaks,” city manager Byron Johnson said during the Dec. 15 electronic council meeting. “That is because the sewer line will be relocated away from the Baker Creek creek bed up to a different location, which is not nearly so subject to erosion damage. Unfortunately, there may be some impacts on properties which are located on the Baker Creek waterfront.”
Between April 20 and April 30, 145 metres of sewer line washed away, and there was significant erosion. The city declared a local state of emergency due to the risk of flooding along Baker Creek.
Johnson says the main sewer access road was washed away, and the east end of Beaubian Avenue and the Riverfront Trail downstream of Beaubian Avenue were damaged. As well, many large trees went down.
With input from the engineering team from the federal government’s Disaster Financial Assistance Agreements (DFAA) program, which will cover a portion of the project costs, and from Emergency Management B.C. (EMBC), city staff decided the best option would be to relocate the sewer line away from Baker Creek. The city’s Executive Committee has also agreed this is the best option.
“It eliminates the potential for damage due to another event like this last year,” said Johnson. “From a city perspective, we have no way of predicting when we will get these extreme high water events, but they seem to be getting more often, and if we have the opportunity to move that, it just seems the appropriate answer to do so.”
READ MORE: City of Quesnel orders local state of emergency due to risk of flooding along Baker Creek
Johnson warned that choosing the relocation option means the old sewer line route will not be rebuilt.
“This is a ‘one or the other’ — we cannot do both,” he said. “The old pathway along Baker Creek in which the pipe was formerly placed will not be rebuilt. That pathway served as a buffer to protect properties adjacent to it from high water erosion; without that protection, some properties on Hutchcroft Street and along that area may be at a higher risk than they were previously. Again, that is a ‘may’ — we cannot predict future weather events, but they may be at a higher risk than they were previously.”
Johnson explained the city’s policy, telling council “when you have an incident like this, council and the city really needs to fall back on policy.”
“It’s what drives it,” he said. “It’s also what takes, I guess, some of the emotional response when we want to get in there and help. It forces you to think about it from a logical policy perspective. We set the policy at a time when we don’t have the pressing issues right in front of us, so we do that at a time when we can think, I don’t know if it’s more rationally, but at least more dispassionately about it.”
Johnson says the immediate emergency response work, done under a state of local emergency, follows policy as well, but it’s set by EMBC, not the city.
Once the emergency is over, the river has subsided and the banks are more stable, the long-term recovery work begins, and the city does have a local services policy to fall back on, explained Johnson.
“The intent behind that is to determine what will council do for services that are going to benefit a particular geographic area in the community,” he said. “We talk about types of local service areas, including if we want to do retaining walls or armouring around rivers and creek banks, and the owner’s share is 100 per cent, we said, as per policy. There’s also an asterisk beside it, and the asterisk says in the case of erosion due to flowing water, if any of the city’s infrastructure is at risk, including utilities systems or roads, the city will contribute a proportion it feels appropriate to protect its infrastructure.”
With the relocation of the sewer mainline away from Baker Creek, this is a key point for the city.
“Our infrastructure is moving out — we will no longer have that sewer mainline in there, and we no longer have that infrastructure to worry about, which, if you just follow the policy, would suggest that the owner’s share should be somewhere near 100 per cent,” said Johnson.
When the city suffers significant damage as a result of an emergent situation, it applies for DFAA funding.
“Between this external federal funding and our own reserves, we repair infrastructure damages and mitigate future damages where possible, but it’s important to note the city will not spend money on mitigating measures unless the city infrastructure is at imminent risk,” said Johnson. “In this particular situation, there is no city infrastructure remaining at imminent risk because the relocation of the mainline reduces that risk.”
City staff estimates replacing the sewer line will cost $2 million, with an estimate that DFAA is going to fund $1.4 million. Staff estimates it will cost $200,000 to repair storm sewers and trails, with DFAA funding $160,000. These costs are included in the city’s 2021 capital plan.
The city already spent more than $500,000 in emergency response costs, the majority of which were funded by EMBC.
Council approved the staff recommendation to relocate the sewer mainline that was damaged in the Baker Creek 2020 freshet at its Dec. 15 meeting.
“I think if you look at the map of the proposed route for the sewer line, given how much erosion is occurring where the old sewer line was, I think we would be in serious breach of our fiduciary function and negligent if we contemplated putting the sewer line back along the creek,” said Mayor Bob Simpson. “I don’t think we have any option there, and I think sticking to our policy is the right thing to do.”
Council also directed staff to inform the potentially-impacted residents about the existing policies related to city works on private property, specifically that the city will not fund those works.
“On behalf of all of council, we feel for the residents there, and we get their pain,” said Simpson. “It’s really unfortunate that this circumstance has arisen.”
READ MORE: Costs of responding to Baker Creek flooding continue to rise for City of Quesnel
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