Friday, March 15, 2013

Colliery Dam Rebuttal Third Installment


Follows is the third in a series of rebuttals to the city of Nanaimo decision to remove the dams at Colliery Park. What Mr. Stead is saying seems plausible, you will have to judge for yourself if it is accurate.

Mr Mayor, Members of Council, Mr.Kenning, Klohn Crippin Burger KCB), members of the press, MLA's and all of my like minded friends, Ladies and gentlemen,

Have you ever heard tell of the Oliver flood at Testalinden Lake and what the Ministry of the Environment investigation found was the cause?

That's the flood, the City of Nanaimo staff, and Klohn Crippen Burger, spearheaded by  Susan Clift, of the city, and  Robin J FitzGerald, p.Eng,., of Klohn Crippen Burger, used as an example to bolster the shock value of their inundation flood theory and report, which caused fear and panic in the resident population of Harewood, living below the dams.

It seems, the investigators discovered that the cause was human error. According to the investigation, the dam was originally constructed with a ten foot spillway. Not too long in the past, it was decided to fill in the spillway with dirt and gravel and install a 12" pipe for a culvert for drainage and use the top of the dam as a roadway, as a short cut to who knows where, the lake was only used for irrigation anyway.

Along came a rainfall which exceeded the capacity of the culvert which filled the capacity of the lake, resulting in a washout of the roadway and the former spillway, resulting in the great flood of Testalinden Lake dam, the fringe of which consisted of loosely packed gravel and dirt.

As a result of the great flood in 2010, the Dam Safety Branch ordered inspections of all dams in the province and tightened up the regulations on dams. I bring this up because this flood was and still is the foundation for the speculative inundation "theory" study which was and still is the foundation of the City of Nanaimo's contention that the fate of Oliver will be the fate of Harewood, but much worse, if the dams fail, ignoring the fact that there is little to no gravel banks to undermine and collapse as there were in the Oliver flood. 2,000 Meters of steep, high, gravel ravine, was undermined by the water, causing an extensive mud slide and debris field that destroyed 5 houses and 1 shed, with no casualties.

There is very little, if any, relevance of the Oliver flood to the so-called inundation study, cause or effect.

Ron Stead
Nanaimo

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