Pemberton Valley Dyking District

Hello again,

From August 31 to September 9, there will be no access along Pemberton Creek D**e from behind the lodge to Airport road. We have posted signs to inform users that do not have social media.

The PVDD is replacing a culvert that goes through the d**e during the "fisheries window" for this area. The culvert is being replaced due to corrosion and for the installation of upgraded flood gates.

There will be trucks and heavy equipment operating in this area so please stay away. Fencing will be installed to keep people out. The more you leave this area clear the faster you will have the path back.

Thanks for understanding.

Happy Tuesday Pemberton,

There will be two posts back to back to make sure to read both.

The Arn Canal clean out project is now completed. CATA construction is finishing up over the next few days. We re topped the running surface of the paths and connected it right to the Poplar street bridge.

There is some re vegetation work that will happen in the fall once the weather becomes favorable.

Thanks to everyone for the patience during this project.

****Arn Canal Update****

The work on the Canal is progressing on schedule. We are through the most difficult part, but now we are at the part where we are constantly having to remove material by truck to keep the process going. It will be the end of next week before we are done, then we will have clean up to do.

There have been some questions as to why we are doing this and the answer is that this section of the Canal was overgrown enough that the water flows from heavy rains were not moving through the canal fast enough and causing issues in some locations. Once we see how this work effects the Canal during the fall rain events, we look to further make improvements where we can. We have limited options in this section of the Canal as the total elevation drop from the CN Tracks to the Lodge is only 1 meter over 1.7 kilometers.

So far, we have found 9 bikes, 6 shopping carts and probably 10 road signs.

Thanks to CATA Construction and ROE environmental for the great work so far. We did isolate an area that has an active bird nest and we will have to come back in mid September to finish up a 20 meter section. This is a difficult job and we have been very careful to follow all of the evinronmental professionals guidelines while completing this work.

Thanks to the 99.9 % of Pemberton residents for being so understanding of this project. We have had a few issues with a small number of people taking out their anger on our construction and environmental team. But we think that they were just having a bad day.

If you are mad or angry call the PVDD. Please leave the people who are just doing their job alone. They have to follow worksafe rules for access around eqiupment and are not installing fencing because they want to make your day miserable.

Thanks again Pemberton and enjoy your day.

Poplar bridge is now open

Good morning Pemberton,

Just a reminder that starting on August 10th, the area in the red rectangle below will be closed until the Arn Canal vegetation management is completed. There will be construction fencing installed to keep people from accessing. There will be heavy equipment, dump trucks and workers in the area for 2-3 weeks. Please plan your walking routes accordingly. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this is necessary work to ensure that the Arn Canal will function properly when the fall rains come.

The covered foot bridge will be close for the entire duration, but we will try to open the Poplar street bridge once we move past that area.

Good evening,

This Thursday night July 9th at the community center the PVDD will be holding its annual general meeting at 7 pm.

If you are interested in what's going on with the PVDD, come out and learn about us. We have a lot going on this year (River modelling, future d**e route modeling, Mt. Meager landslide monitoring equipment and early warning system installation and a plethora of other projects).

Come out for a 1 or so hour meeting and see what happening.

Have a good night.

Good morning Pemberton,

With this lovely weather the rivers are up today. Nothing to worry about just regular melt. The snow gauge at Tenquille Lake has now reached zero (5 days later than last year). These warm overnight temps will keep rivers up for the next few days. The Lillooet is currently running at 465 CMS and that is the highest flow we have seen this spring.

There are two projects that the PVDD is doing this year that will have an impact on access to some well used areas.

The Arn Canal is heavily vegetated in the stretch that goes from the Poplar Street foot bridge to the highway. We have been monitoring this and now the time has come that we must remove some vegetation to ensure the Arn can move water in our fall rain events. Currently this project is scheduled to be completed from August 10th to August 28th. During that time the walking paths and foot bridge will be closed to the public for safety reasons. We understand that this is a high pedestrian and bike traffic area, but we must do this to keep the Canal working properly.(See map below)

The second project is a culvert replacement in Pemberton Creek D**e. The culvert at this location is to rusty to hold the flood gate anymore and must be replaced. The flood gate is required to keep the Creek from backflowing during high flow events. This project is scheduled for September 8 to 11th. We expect that with some pre work the week before that we can do this in only a day or two and will open the trail as soon as possible. There will be no through access from Airport road to the Lodge during this time. (see other map)

We apologize for the inconvenience, however NOAA has put out the ENSO model update and they have the chances of a strong El Nino at 100%. This typically means a warmer drier winter but, potential for rain on snow events due to freezing level variability is increased. It is only a prediction so a grain of salt is required, but the PVDD must do work in Summer to prepare for fall.

We will also have a new weather and stream flow gauge at the Birkenhead River headwaters by end of October this year which should help forecasting dramatically.

Enjoy the sun!

Good afternoon,

We were looking at the snowpack today and although it has been a tough year for Whistler, that is not the case north of us. The Tenquille gauge at 1680 meters is reading some interesting numbers. There is over 1 meter more snow than on this date last year. The last time we had a snow pack peak at over 3 meters there was 2022. Squamish river headwaters interestingly has less snow than last year, so the area of high snow pack appears to be fairly concentrated in the Lillooet headwaters.

There is very little snow below 1200 meters due to the rain events we have had, so spring time run off should be fairly normal. It just depends on how fast it decides to come down. Typically the melt starts to ramp up in the first two weeks of May.

Good afternoon,

Well, we got that heavy rain this morning that was forecast. I was hoping the weather people were wrong.

By this morning every ditch and canal was overfull and there were several people with water issues on their properties. One thing to remember is, if you have a culvert on your driveway access to your house it is your job to make sure it is clear. These caused several issues today.

The Arn Canal is overbank full and will take several days to a week to drain out. Most ditches in the town area drain into the Arn, so they will take a while as well. Pemberton Creek is dropping quickly now, so that will help with the Arn drainage.

All of the rivers have now peaked and are trending down.

We are now going for a nap.

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Good Evening,

The latest weather update is.

We have another 50mm or so of rain to come. The heaviest rainfall is going to be in the early morning tomorrow peaking at 3-5mm per hour around 6 am.

All of the rivers except for the Lillooet river are stalled out or dropping. The alpine temps are favorable and it is snowing above 1700 meters. We do not think that the freezing levels are going to bump up as high during this next rain event.

The Green river peaked today at 236 CMS, but is likely to peak at over 300 CMS tomorrow (still not in danger territory) We think the Lillooet will peak tomorrow around 400 CMS. Today is the first day of this storm where the Lillooet was higher than the Green. Pemberton creek is likely going to get higher in the morning hours as well and likely higher than it was today.

We have two pumps at Pioneer Junction and we were doing some preliminary pumping today. With Pemberton Creek dropping the culverts are flowing again, so there is no need to keep them running until early tomorrow morning if the creek comes up again. I will be out early to start them if required. I am going to fuel them one last time tonight and when they run out, that is ok.

The Arn Canal is actually dropping downstream of the railroad tracks although upstream areas along Collins road will see high water for some time yet, while the flow works its way through the system.

One more rainy night then some nicer weather this weekend. There is another storm front coming in for Tuesday or Wednesday but it is not near as strong and will only be a 12 or so hour event.

Have a good night.