2006 flood report unlikely to stop development, experts warn

By JOSH WINGROVE OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail Jun. 25 2013
Facing the prospect of a multibillion-dollar cleanup bill, the Alberta government will consider placing new limits on development in flood-prone areas, the key recommendation of a 2006 report that was shelved for six years.
The report, released only last year, called for $306-million in changes that some say could have paid off in this month’s flood.

Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen left the door open to putting a clamp on flood-plain development when questioned about the report Tuesday. “We’ll be looking and having discussions on that.”
Stopping the sale of Crown land “in known flood risk areas” was the single most relevant safety measure the province could take, former MLA George Groeneveld says. He wrote the 2006 report after much of his riding flooded the year before. It’s the same region that washed out again this month.
But to slow or stop flood-plain development would be a monumental undertaking because, simply put, people like waterfront land. Mr. Groeneveld also recommended the province refuse disaster-relief money to “inappropriate development” – a notion opposed by cities “as it halts development in very high value areas,” his report says. Some of flood-ravaged Calgary’s most desirable enclaves are on low-lying land, where taxpayers will now cover much of the rebuilding cost.
But other experts warn little will change. “I’d say they’re basically asleep at the wheel, and they’re like political jurisdictions everywhere,” University of Calgary professor Jerry Osborn, a geoscientist who studies river movements, said of the Alberta government. Mr. Groeneveld’s report was “quite thoughtful,” he said, but “there’s no real, serious attempt to cut down on flood plain development.”
Political interest peaks after disasters and then tends to disappear, said Geoffrey Hale, a political scientist at Alberta’s University of Lethbridge. He began a yet-to-be-published study on Alberta’s disaster response after the 2005 flood. Political leaders tend “to engage only when something goes seriously wrong,” he said. He suspects the province delayed the release of Mr. Groeneveld’s report out of a liability concern. “There would have been a retrospective impact on anyone that already had property within a flood zone or a flood fringe zone,” he said.
In 1973, Calgary considered declaring flood plains as hazard zones, Prof. Osborn recalls. Landowners fired back, fearing their property values would drop. “It was amazing. And the heat was so hot, the city finally gave up the whole thing,” he said. A 1983 provincial study was similarly fruitless.
Consumers drive demand for waterfront housing, said Kevin Lee, chief executive officer of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association.
“One of the most popular choices of Canadians is to live near water,” he said, adding some towns and cities set strict rules that builders then follow. “… But of course when major events occur that are outside the norm, and way beyond the norm, stuff can happen at times.”
Mr. Groeneveld encouraged the province to look at his report again, as it faces what the Premier warns could be a 10-year rebuilding effort. “Dust that thing off, update it,” he said, later adding: “The one [recommendation] that’s totally relevant – stop building on the flood plains. Stop that.”
Since the report, Alberta officials say they’ve produced 57 flood hazard maps and 36 “high water mark” surveys, and sent extensive information to towns and cities. And now the province will be in talks with those municipalities over what to do about flood plains.
Danielle Smith, the Wildrose Leader who succeeded Mr. Groeneveld as MLA in her riding, had long pushed for the flood report’s release. “I’m not saying [this year’s] disaster could have been avoided altogether,” she said. “But [think about] how much less damage there would have been if they started implementing the results of George Groeneveld’s report when he wrote it.”
Ms. McQueen rejected that, saying this flooding was “unprecedented” and no report “could have prepared us for this event.”
Prof. Osborn said the province could easily limit further flood-plain development, while Prof. Hale said the province should focus on changes that can be introduced within 12 months.
“We cannot afford to go along on a business-as-usual basis,” he said. “It is the default option in emergency management, not just in Alberta but anywhere including the federal government, until something big enough happens to get people’s attention.”

Alberta flood damage could have been reduced if report heeded: experts
By John Cotter The Canadian Press June 24 2013
An expert says devastation could have been reduced in southern Alberta if the government had followed its own report on how to lessen the effects of severe flooding.
The report was completed by a government task force in 2006 in the wake of a flood the previous year that killed three people and caused $400 million in damage in many of the same communities hit by high water in recent days.
“In my opinion, if this report had been implemented, I sincerely believe that the damage we are seeing right now could have been reduced,” Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, said Monday from Toronto.
“I thought this report did a really good job covering the right topics and offering very specific advice on what should be done.”
The report called for extensive mapping of flood risk areas and said 36 communities required flood risk assessments.
It also called on the government to stop selling Crown land in flood-prone areas and to prohibit disaster recovery payments for new, inappropriate developments in flood risk zones.
Seven years later, it’s not clear how many of the report’s 18 recommendations have been put in place.
Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffith said some work has been done but there is no way all of the report’s recommendations could be fully implemented.
“It is work in progress, I don’t think you could ever fully complete all of the recommendations,” Griffiths has said.
“No matter how much mapping you do, and how much mitigation you do, there are still going to be some risks because it is hard to move a whole community back five miles from the river.”
When the task force submitted its report in 2006, which included input from four cabinet ministers, it estimated it would cost $306 million to fully implement the recommended flood mitigation strategy.
On Monday, Premier Alison Redford announced the province will spend $1 billion to kick-start the first phase of recovery from she has called the worst flooding in the province’s history.
The Alberta government plans to hold a technical briefing in Calgary on Tuesday to explain its response to the 2006 flood mitigation plan, which the government released to the public just last summer.
Kovacs said it is cheaper to invest in flood mitigation than dealing with such tragedies after the fact.
“You can’t stop the rain from falling or the flood from striking, but if you anticipate and invest ahead of time and manage these risks appropriately, they don’t need to become disasters,” he said.
The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction says it was established by Canada’s property and insurance industry as an independent, not-for-profit research institute affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.

Development petition, date unknown