• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

B.C. Faces $1B in Damage After U.S. Refuses to Reinforce Cross-Border Dike

December 5, 2021
Reading time: 2 minutes

Patrick McNally/flickr

Patrick McNally/flickr

9
SHARES
 

A longstanding cross-border failure to redress the vexed problem of the Nooksack River’s occasional but devastating flooding has left Fraser Valley farmers and homeowners with estimated damages nearing C$1 billion.

There’s more than enough blame to go around in the most recent chapter in the story of Washington State’s Nooksack River and its periodic threat to the fertile, low-lying lands of British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, writes the Globe and Mail.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

That the river’s floodwaters managed to wreak such havoc in places like Abbotsford in mid-November is in part a result of a multi-jurisdictional failure to maintain key dike systems already in place north of the border.

Washington State arguably shoulders some of the blame for refusing B.C. ’s repeated pleas to build a $29-million levee extension that would have held the Nooksack within its banks at the town of Everson, some 9.5 kilometres from the Canadian border.

Building that extension could have saved the region more than $500 million in damage to infrastructure and agriculture, writes the Globe, citing a flood mitigation report produced for the city of Abbotsford in 2020.

Extending the levee at Everson would cost “less than a tenth” of flood prevention alternatives north of the 49th parallel, which would involve not only raising dikes but also “tunnelling a runoff channel through a mountain,” adds the Globe.

But, as the report noted, that calculation looked “only at Canada-side damages,” not at the potential costs to Washington State and its citizens. The Abbotsford report acknowledged that extending the levee could cause more flooding downstream, where the Nooksack threads through both valuable farmland and Indigenous territory, so that “additional analysis work is needed on the U.S. side to provide the overall benefit-cost ratio.”

Any flood control measures on the Nooksack would also have to account for the fact that the river is inhabited by chinook salmon, currently under federal legal protection in the U.S. as a threatened species.

“It really isn’t simply an economic analysis for us,” Dave Radabaugh, program coordinator for Washington’s National Flood Insurance Program, told the Globe. “We’re still looking at it and sorting through the options.”

One option the B.C. government has been reluctant to pursue, writes the Globe, is getting the International Joint Commission (IJC) involved. Once commissioned to do so by federal governments, the U.S.-Canada body can make non-binding recommendations for solutions to “thorny” cross-border water issues, “including payment from one country to another for construction or compensation.”

But B.C. has had cold feet about using the IJC ever since it recommended canceling a coal mine on the Flathead River, said Ralph Pentland, Canada’s former federal director of water planning and management. But Pentland described the province’s continuing unwillingness to invoke the IJC as “a big mistake—for the province and [for its] people.”



in Biodiversity & Habitat, Canada, First Peoples, Food Security & Agriculture, Health & Safety, Insurance & Liability, International Agencies & Studies, Legal & Regulatory, Severe Storms & Flooding, Sub-National Governments, United States, Water

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

kelly8843496 / Pixabay
Finance & Investment

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
624
TruckPR/flickr
Hydrogen

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
373
icondigital/pixabay
Supply Chains & Consumption

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
182

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
624
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
149
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
373
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
59
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
755
icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
182

Recent Posts

UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
36
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
87
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
63
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
339
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
1k
U.S. National Park Service/rawpixel

Window for 1.5°C ‘Rapidly Closing’, IPCC Warns

March 20, 2023
97
Next Post
MENA/Flickr

Ontario EV Plan Pushes Manufacturing, Sidesteps Consumer Demand and Supply Chain Impacts

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}