2010 study warned of more frequent flooding in Calgary

Matt McClure in the Calgary Herald: Provincial and city officials were warned three years ago that climate change could cause Calgary to suffer more frequent and devastating floods. Despite the predictions of more intense rainfalls if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increased, a 2010 engineering study suggested the worst-case inundation on the Bow and Elbow rivers still wouldn’t be as bad as previously predicted.

“It is anticipated that such changes in precipitation patterns could increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events,” the study said. “There is no clear evidence that the patterns in magnitude or timing of flood peaks have changed significantly over the past 100 years.”

The $80,000 report — produced by Golder Associates consultants in Calgary for what is now Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development — was supposed to guide emergency response planning and flood mapping efforts by the province and the city.

It’s unclear how the report was later used or whether it prompted complacency among local and provincial officials, who might have concluded from the findings that the risk of the sort of flood that Calgary witnessed four weeks ago was more remote than previously thought.

But for the hydrologist whose climate change research was cited in the report, the 2013 floods were no surprise. “I kind of felt like saying ‘I told you so’ when it happened,” said Caterina Valeo, “because my work clearly showed flooding was likely to increase.”...

The Centre Street Bridge in Calgary during the Alberta floods of 2013, shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Canadian cities' vulnerability to climate change clear after Alberta floods

Laura Tozer in the Energy Collective: Flooding swept over Southern Alberta, Canada from Calgary to Canmore in mid-June. Evacuation orders were issued in towns and cities as rivers like the Bow and the Elbow swelled and spilled over their banks. Historic water levels were reached in Medicine Hat, downtown Calgary was emptied and underwater, and towns like High River were completely evacuated for days as police patrolled the flood ravaged streets.

The Alberta flooding is one of the many climate change impacts already being felt around the world, but it also foreshadows the rise in extreme events that is on the way. The frequency of weather disasters will continue to increase as long as we keep recklessly pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As the climate warms, we will see extreme events like the flooding that push the boundaries of our built infrastructure. Since it has hit so close to home this time, in Canada it should be a call to arms.

In the flooding that hit Alberta, the resiliency of Albertans has taken centre stage. The stories pouring out of the province have been full of neighbours helping neighbours. One water engineer and entrepreneur that I met in Alberta last week was nearly sleeping as he stood after a soggy, scary and sleep-deprived week. He had been setting up basement pumps across downtown Calgary, helped by roving bands of volunteers descending on homes and businesses to help clean up the mess. It's clear that the social fabric of society is the key to our ability to respond and rebuild. However, that's not the only factor affecting vulnerability to climate change.

The emergency has called into question the resiliency of our cities' built infrastructure. In addition to energy infrastructure that is still too waterlogged to turn back on in downtown Calgary, the most drastic infrastructure failure was the collapse of a rail bridge in Calgary that was undermined by the flooding. When a train crossed it days after the flooding started, the crumbling bridge caused several train cars full of petroleum products to derail and hang perilously over the swollen river. The incident stressed the emergency services of a city already stretched to the edge. It is obvious that a failure to adapt to climate change will continue to result in incredibly costly impacts on Canadian cities...

Riverfront Avenue in Calgary during the floods in June, 2013, shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Calgary floods spotlight cities' costly failure to plan for climate change

Amber Hildebrandt in CBC News (Canada): Many Canadian cities and towns are ill-prepared for the rising frequency of catastrophic weather events like the southern Alberta floods, and it’s a problem that taxpayers will ultimately end up paying for, climate change experts say. "There are other disasters waiting to happen in other parts of Canada, but Calgary is a good poster child for inaction on warnings they received not too long ago," said James P. Bruce, former Environment Canada assistant deputy minister.

Many have heaped praise on southern Alberta's emergency response after extremely heavy rain pummelled communities, with several months’ worth of rain falling in the span of hours for some areas. "From a disaster response point of view, the Calgary mayor did a fantastic job in running the whole show," said Kaz Higuchi, a York University professor in environmental studies and former Environment Canada scientist.

But a community's ability to react during a disaster is one thing. Minimizing the impact of a flood is another. Now, the province faces a potentially decade-long cleanup effort that could cost $5 billion by BMO Nesbitt Burns estimates.

Disaster risk management experts say the Alberta situation should serve as a wake-up call to municipalities across the country of the need to spend money and time mitigating the risks before disaster strikes, especially as climate change is predicted to bring bigger and more frequent severe weather events....

Flooded Calgary on June 25, 2013. Shot by Ryan L. C. Quan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Canada's power supplies could be hit for months by floods

The Guardian (UK) via Reuters: Power cuts in the Canadian oil capital of Calgary could last for weeks or even months, city authorities said on Sunday, after record-breaking floods swept across southern Alberta, killing three people and forcing more than 100,000 to flee their homes.

Some Calgary residents were able to return to sodden homes as rivers dropped and some evacuation orders were lifted. But Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said power restoration in the city centre, where many of Canada's oil companies have their headquarters, could take days, weeks or even months. Many oil companies were making plans for employees to work from home.

"This is an evolving situation and because of the volatility of electricity and water and the infrastructure that was damaged we have got a lot of issues with restoring power to different parts of the city of Calgary," Alderman John Mar told CBC radio. "We are facing an absolutely gargantuan task."

Heavy rains were blamed for the spilling of 750 barrels of synthetic oil from a pipeline about 70km (43 miles) south of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta early on Saturday.

"We are still investigating the cause, however, we believe that unusually heavy rains in the area may have resulted in ground movement on the right-of way that may have impacted the pipeline," Enbridge, Canada's largest pipeline company, said in an emailed statement. It has shut two major oil pipelines serving Canada's oil sands region as a precaution. Provincial authorities said it was too early to count the cost of the flood damage because rivers have not peaked in some places.

The South Saskatchewan River is expected to burst its banks in the city of Medicine Hat in south-east Alberta on Monday. About 10,000 have been evacuated. The floods already look worse than those of 2005, which caused C$400m (£248m) damage in the province....

Children playing in floodwater in Calgary on June 21, 2013. Shot by Sean Esopenko, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Calgary neighbourhoods evacuated as floods hit western Canada

The Guardian (UK) via AP: Water levels from heavy flooding in western Canada were expected to peak around noon on Friday, possibly forcing as many as 100,000 people from their homes, officials said. On Thursday, torrential rain and widespread flooding throughout southern Alberta forced the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway and isolated the mountain resort towns of Banff and Canmore. The flooding washed out roads and bridges, left at least one person missing and caused cars, couches and refrigerators to float away.

Communities were hit hard just south of Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics. Many downtown neighborhoods were evacuated. Officials said the evacuation would take place in stages over the next few days. The province reported that 12 communities were under states of emergency. One woman, who had been stranded on top of a trailer, was missing after it was swept away, said a STARS air ambulance spokesman, Cam Heke.

Motorists who were trapped overnight Wednesday by water spilling over Canada's main western highway had to be rescued by helicopter, said a Town of Canmore spokeswoman, Sally Caudill.

...Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said water levels on the Bow River are not expected to subside until Saturday afternoon. The Bow River Basin has been battered with up to 100 mm (3.9 inches) of rain. "Depending on the extent of flooding we experience overnight, there may be areas of the city where people are not going to be able to get into until the weekend," he told a news conference....

Banff National Park Pavillion flooded grounds, circa 1920.

Extreme weather events costing Alberta millions

Graham Thomson in the Edmonton Journal: After announcing another $189 million in relief for Slave Lake this week, the Alberta government seems to be in danger of becoming a de facto insurance company cleaning up after disasters. We'll certainly be seeing more disasters followed by more provincial government payouts if scientific predictions prove accurate about extreme weather events.

Forest fires, floods and Mother Nature's chainsaw, the mountain pine beetle, cost the government roughly $450 million a year. That's not including the $290 million in total allocated to the Slave Lake fire. It doesn't include the $700 million the insurance industry itself will spend rebuilding Slave Lake. The government has understandably been supportive to all the residents of Slave Lake. Privately, though, some officials are worried the generosity may set an expensive precedent.

...Those private concerns remain deeply buried in government departments. Nobody, after all, wants to look like a cold-hearted calculator in the face of human tragedy. And no bureaucrat wants to contradict political leaders, including Sustainable Resources Minister Mel Knight, who insist that the ferocious nature of the Slave Lake fire was a "one-off" disaster unrelated to climate change and wilder weather.

...But scientists who study forests and the climate are sure he's wrong. They call the Slave Lake fire a billion-dollar wakeup call. So does the Insurance Bureau of Canada - and there's nothing more cold and calculating than numbers from an insurance underwriter....

Great Slave Lake at Yellowknife, shot by sfbnurse http://www.flickr.com/people/sfbnurse/, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Water security at risk as drought, oil processing lower Alberta's water table

Derek Schutz in the Gateway (the student newspaper at the University of Alberta): In conjunction with World Water Day on March 22, Change for Children is co-ordinating a series of events to bring light to issues surrounding water scarcity and water use in Alberta and around the world. According to Fiona Cavanagh, program manager of education and public engagement at Change for Children, students can get involved and bring awareness to water issues by being "Water Campaigners."

"We're asking people to commit to be a water campaigner over the month of March which means we would give you a water kit with information on some water issues [...] and we'll ask you to collect 22 emails from people who'd like to know more about the work we do," she said.

Change for Children is an Edmonton-based charity dealing in the global south. They will be accepting donations to fund their various projects, one which provides fresh water sources to rural Nicaraguan communities in partnership with the Canadian International Development Agency.

"We have many water projects. The big one we have has impacted over 70 communities in rural Nicaragua," Cavanagh said. "It's not just about ensuring communities have access to water, which is a big part, but it's also really supporting communities to manage water locally."

But according to Cavanagh, the main issues surrounding water and water scarcity are just as applicable to Alberta as they are abroad. "There are three issues [...] and I would say these are issues for Alberta as much as they are for Nicaragua. One is dwindling fresh water supply and quality of that water [...] the other one is inequitable access to water globally," Cavanagh said. "The third one is governance of water and how we manage it."…

This is a picture of Syncrude's base mine. The yellow structures are the bases of pyramids made of sulphur - it is not economical for Syncrude to sell the sulphur so it stockpiles it instead. Behind that is the tailings pond, held in by what is recognized as the largest dam in the world. The extraction plant is just to the right of this photograph and most of the mine is to the left.