Thursday, May 17, 2012
The majority of the flooding on Lake Manitoba in 2011 was artificial – A Rebuttal to Greg Selinger
The Majority of the Flooding on Lake Manitoba was artificial flooding:
In Estimates in response to a question from me, Premier Greg Selinger said:
“And I think there’s even a view among some people that, even if the diversion had not been used, that the dikes would have breached and would have impacted the communities on Lake Manitoba, including Delta Beach and Twin Beaches and St. Laurent, et cetera, and would have put a lot of additional water into Lake Manitoba, even in the absence of the diversion, because of the way the land flows. And the water would have wound up there, and then it probably would have wound up in Lake St. Martin as well. So we just had a heck of a lot of water, and it needed to go someplace, and I think the diversion was used to minimize the negative consequences for as many Manitobans as possible.”
Andy Zubrycki wrote to me to say that the Premier must be “well aware that the majority of the flooding on Lake Manitoba last year was artificial, and it troubles me that his response seems to imply that much of the water that entered via the Portage Diversion would have gone into Lake Manitoba regardless. In fact, as you may be aware, the province’s own flood forecasters know this is not the case, and acknowledge that only a minor portion of the Diversion’s flow would have entered the lake naturally.”
“In a moment I would like to forward a reply that I received from them in December of 2011, in which the Director of Flood Forecasting answers one of my queries, noting that in fact, only 20-30% of the water from the 4.13 feet of height-equivalent channelled through the Portage Diversion is believed to have been “natural” input. The other 70-80% from the Diversion was artificial. Again, this is according to the Director himself. If this information is not already readily available, then I am hopeful that these facts could be referenced in case there are attempts in the future to imply that the flooding was natural, since it so clearly was not.”
Andy Zubrycki asked
