The Pemberton Valley Emergency Management Committee (PVEMC), Lil’wat Nation and Squamish Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) plan to bring discussions on increased river forecasting measures to the Village of Pemberton Council (VOP) for consideration in the 2022 budget.
Over the past two years, the PVEMC, which is made up of the VOP, the SLRD, Lil’wat Nation and the Pemberton Valley Dyking District (PVDD), have applied for a variety of emergency management measures including several river gauges that will increase river forecasting, “especially in events similar to the one we just had where there’s a lot of high water,” said Nikki Gilmore, chief administrative officer for the Village, at the regular council meeting July 27.
There is currently a gauge on the Lillooet River that is providing data, explained Gilmore, but it is unable to provide data on what the impacts will be from other waterways in the system until it’s too late, which is why the proposed idea is to add more river gauges throughout the waterway.
“What we’ve noticed is that we won’t see anything significant happening in upper Lillooet, where some localized weather system has actually stopped around the Ryan Creek or Miller Creek area, and it has a significant amount of rain that’s coming down.
“And all of a sudden, we see that there’s flooding issues happening in town.”
Gilmore said the improved forecasting system would allow the Village and the surrounding area to better plan for an emergency response including potential evacuations, sand bagging stations and other needed response actions.
While most of council is on board with further discussions on these extra measures, councillor Ted Craddock did raise concerns about where the funding would come from. His issue being that this would become a new cause of taxation on the residents of Pemberton for years to come.
“[The PVDD] have a taxing authority, just like we do. When we need funds, we have to go to the community and pick those up. I think it’d be hard for the [PVDD] to have a proper budget when they’re going outside of their own budget to find funds,” he said.
“I’m having a real issue with this, to go to the community and say, ‘well you’re paying diking taxes over here, and you’re also paying diking taxes in the community because we’re helping fund some new gauges.’”
However, Gilmore noted that the application for these funds would be specific to emergency management, not for improvements to the PVDD, but would still benefit all parties involved.
“I see this as a project that came out of the Pemberton Valley Emergency Management Committee, and I don’t think the [PVDD] would have pursued this necessarily if it wasn’t from an emergency management perspective,” said Gilmore.
“I think that’s the top lens, and that’s why the request is coming in. Obviously, you know, they’re saying they’ll contribute a little bit more and maybe some of the information and data will help them, but I think that this is not something that the [PVDD] is necessarily responsible for.”
At this point in the proposal, the PVDD would be covering 40 per cent of the expenses for the new gauges, while 60 per cent would be split between Lil’wat, the SLRD and the Village.
The motion was carried, and council will have further discussions about this proposal for the 2022 budget.
