A three-year process is officially underway which, by 2025, should give residents of Ste. Agathe a much higher level of protection from future floods.

Thanks in part to recommendations made in the Manitoba 2011 Flood Task Force Report, work has begun to help ready Red River Valley communities to withstand floodwaters up to one-in-200-year levels.

Residents of Ste. Agathe were invited to two public information sessions held at the Culture and Community Centre on December 13. This event kicked off round one of public engagement.

Working together on the project, the event hosted representatives from Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI), KGS Group, and Scatliff, Miller and Murray—all experts in the field of landscape engineering and urban development.

“We’re all Manitobans,” said Bruno Arpin of KGS Group. “We’ve been dealing with flooding forever. Over the past 60 years, the province has worked to make communities more resilient, and we’ve been successful in doing that, but there’s always room for improvement. And that’s why this project is so important. There’s more that can be done.”

The primary goal of the initial public meeting was to inform and then allow residents an opportunity to ask questions and relay any concerns they may have.

In the coming weeks, site investigations and environmental assessments will be performed along the ten kilometres of the Ste. Agathe dike. Findings will be presented at a second public meeting in January. Further community feedback to the findings will assist engineers in drawing up design alternatives.

A third and final public meeting will take place in February, when preliminary designs will be unveiled. Following more feedback, a report will be submitted to the province for consideration.

“We need to make sure that with anything we do… we don’t have a detrimental impact,” said Arpin. “We need to present options that are viable, that will work for the community. The work is going to have a footprint. Most things do. My goal is to eliminate [negative] impacts where possible.”

To help fund this massive project, consultants hope to access federal grants while they’re still available through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP).

History of the Ring Dike

Jared Baldwin is the MTI project manager on the Ste. Agathe Dike Raise project. He’s also a prior resident of St. Adolphe and understands the challenges of living in a flood zone.

“In 1950, we had a pretty catastrophic widespread flood,” Baldwin told those gathered. “That prompted a lot of flood protection projects throughout the province. One of the most prominent projects that came out of that was the Floodway, but a lot of flood protection projects were done throughout the Red River Valley as well. Various towns received flood protection in the form of ring dikes. Some of them received full circumference ring dikes, some did not. Ste. Agathe was in the latter category, where some dikes were constructed and some existing infrastructure was leveraged to provide some of that protection.”

The original Ste. Agathe dike was constructed in phases throughout the 1960s and 70s. For the most part, it provided adequate protection for the community over the next quarter-century.

In spring of 1997, the community was hit hard when unprecedented floodwaters breached the rail portion of the dike on the west side, inundating the community.

Shortly thereafter, the dike was raised on all sides, bringing it up to 1997 levels plus two feet. The only exceptions were the highway access points, also called closures, and an approximate one-kilometre section of land extending along the riverbank on the east end of town.

“The engineers at the time said that the riverbank stability was of concern, so it was never built there,” Baldwin said. “The idea was that, as the floodwaters increased in elevation, a [temporary] dike would be built. The water, as it’s rising, provides a little bit of a weight against the riverbank so it’s a little more stable and can accommodate the dike. But then when the water’s receding, the opposite happens. It becomes unstable, so the need is to remove that dike as quickly as possible.”

Since that time, the construction of temporary earth berms and sandbagging has been necessary on a near annual basis. Over the years, these temporary flood protection measures have been responsible for the destruction of some trees and walking paths along the riverbank.

The Plan

In order to meet the one-in-200-year flood protection level, some parts of the ring dike will require more attention than others.

“The closures require the most amount of fill when there’s a flood,” Arpin said. “Closure number one, at Highway 75 north, requires the most amount of fill at 4.6 meters.”

Arpin adds that there’s a lot to consider when undertaking such a project. Locating and working around buried infrastructure is one thing. Another is the stabilization of riverbanks to prevent erosion while maintaining the river’s flow and characteristics.

Drainage, of course, will also be of utmost importance. Once everything is documented, the practicality, feasibility, and affordability of the dike raising project should become clearer.

Councillor Lemoine Responds

Joel Lemoine, councillor for Ste. Agathe, says he’s pleased with the turnout of 40 to 50 residents at the December 13 sessions. For the most part, he says, people took the time to voice their concerns.

Some of the concerns he’s heard from his constituents prior to the meeting focused on how individual property owners would be affected by a higher dike. Some worried about losing their river view. Others shared concern over backyard privacy lost to hikers and off-road vehicles that might use the dike summit as a trail.

As well, many cite drainage issues, since the dike has the same capacity to keep rainwater in as it does to keep floodwaters out.

All in all, though, Lemoine feels the broad representation of professionals at the public meetings demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with the community on this project.

“It shows us that the province and the engineers and professional agencies are [making themselves] available to talk and actually showing that something is being done,” Lemoine says. “I think it’s just reassuring for everybody.”