Important Notice for the Harewood Community

Wednesday, January 15th at 10:30am 

the City will be conducting an emergency test in the Harewood area. 

People who live in the inundation area, who previously have been contacted, will receive a phone call regarding the test. The siren will be sounded at full volume for 3 minutes and John Barsby students and staff will participate in an evacuation drill. This will be very loud and there will likely be people living outside the inundation zone unaware of what it is for. If you think there are people you know living in the area who might not be aware please take time to inform them. If you find it particularly upsetting you may want to make plans to be away from the area at that time.

We are asking for the siren to only be sounded for 60 seconds as we think this would be an appropriate amount of time for a test but as yet have not received an answer. This is a City decision and if you have any comments or feedback I would ask you to direct it to them.

The technical committee is working toward a remediation plan that will take away the necessity for the siren testing for the dams. Our hope is that eventually it can be used as part of an overall emergency alert system for our area.

Although the City was required to develop an emergency plan, and it is good to be prepared in the case of an emergency, it is also important to keep in mind that the City engineer told us last winter that the dams are stable in their current condition. It is the classification that has changed. The condition of the dams is the same. Engineers have stated that the dams have shown ‘no apparent’ deterioration since being upgraded in 1980. They have withstood flood and seismic events for over 100 years. The major change is the Dam Safety standards, with more stringent requirements.

Again, if you know someone that you think might be unduly concerned with the test please give them this information.

We appreciate your patience and any assistance you can offer at this time.

Roblyn Hunter

Update Report from Roblyn HunterLetter to Acting City Manager HowatKey Info from the Inundation Study

The saga of the Colliery Dams continues. We had an extremely lucky break with Doug White, Chief of Snuneymuxw First Nations intervening at the July 8th Council meeting. As a result we now have a different process, but we are unsure what that will look like. Ian Howat has said that the Colliery Dam Park Preservation Society will be included in the decision making as short and long term mitigation is being considered. We are now waiting for this opportunity. 

One concern we have is that we were told that the same inundation study is being re run inputting different information. Even if they were to change the standard to 1:5,000, and if they use the conceptual costs from KCB, it would be financially unacceptable to the community. We will continue to press for accountability for information, money spent on studies, and pursuing common sense methods and options.

My letter to Ian Howat with copies sent to council members and Snuneymuxw representatives

Dear Ian Howat,

Thank you for inviting us to a meeting with you this last Friday August 16th. It was encouraging to be told that your staff will be looking at all options regarding the Colliery Dams and that we will be invited to participate in that planning. We would like to re affirm that we would very much like to participate.

As per our conversation I am sending some information that you were not aware of and I believe is extremely important in going forward. First I have included the description of the software models that were used in the inundation study for the Colliery Dams for you to look over which you will find below. You will find a description of the model used for the Westwood Inundation study on page 11 of the 2004 Westwood Inundation study, under the heading Hydraulic modelling. You will quickly see the difference is the addition of 2 dimensional modelling for the Colliery dams study.