Manitoba goes ahead with deliberate flooding south of Assiniboine River

HOOP AND HOLLER BEND, Man. – Machines have broken through a dike holding back the Assiniboine River to deliberately flood a swath of land in southern Manitoba.

Officials announced the breach on Twitter shortly after 7 a.m. Central time.

“It is expected to take a few hours before a significant amount of water begins to flow,” the government said in a statement.

“It is intended that flows will disperse slowly across fields and then fill behind roads and spill at low points long roads and ultimately spill into the LaSalle River.”

The controlled release southeast of Portage la Prairie is expected to flood 225 square kilometres and could affect at least 150 houses. People in the area have been frantically sandbagging around the clock as officials postponed the release a number of times this week in the hope it wouldn’t be necessary.

Homes that will be hit first from rising water levels were evacuated days ago.

“Residents in the immediate area have already been evacuated and significant efforts have been put in place to set up flood protection systems around homes,” the government said.

It says redirecting the water will prevent 500 square kilometres and 850 properties further downstream from being swamped.

“The controlled spill floods approximately 225 square kilometres in order to prevent flooding of a much larger area with up to about 10 times the volume of water from an unplanned dike breach,” the statement said. “The controlled release affects the same area that would be at risk of flooding by an uncontrolled breach.”

The release is taking place at a rate of 500 cubic feet per second about enough water to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool every three minutes.

Every day, the rate would be increased until it reached a maximum of 3,000 cubic feet per second.

The result will not be a torrent of water, but a slow spreading-out over a wide, flat area, filling in low-lying sections between roadways somewhat akin to maple syrup covering a waffle.

In the meantime, soldiers and reservists have been hard at work, helping to sandbag and reinforce dikes along the river. Assiniboine is at record levels with officials calling this a “one-in-300-year” flood.

“The controlled release is designed to relieve pressure on the Assiniboine River dikes which are under heavy pressure form river flows,” the government said.
“They are being continuously monitored and repaired on an ongoing basis.”

The province has been raising the spectre of the intentional flood for almost a week.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger took to the airwaves Friday evening to stress this has not been an easy decision and homeowners will be compensated.

“We have worked to delay the timing of the release for as long as we safely could to allow more homes to be protected,” Selinger said in a prepared statement aired during supper-hour newscasts.

“If we stood back and allowed nature to run its course, we would face an almost certain uncontrolled break of the dike. An uncontrolled break would be catastrophic and unpredictable, spilling water onto more than 500 square kilometres of land.”

So far this year, 100 homes across the province have been flooded, although only 10 suffered anything more than basement flooding.