By Brent Bosker

Higher river flows expected, city unaffected

Jun 23, 2011 | 6:23 AM

The North Saskatchewan River will be higher and moving faster through Prince Albert by the end of the week, but these increased flows will likely not impact on the city.

The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority is predicting flows of 2,000 cubic meters per second which will cause the river to rise by as much as two and-a-half meters. The extra water is the result of heavy rains upstream in Alberta.

Those flows are already arriving, but the peak won’t be seen until Friday or Saturday, said Dale Hjertass with the watershed authority.

“It’s not a big issue for us at this point,” said Alain Trudell, public works operations manager for the City of Prince Albert.

“If those flows are where they are, it will go through the city without any issue.”

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“The area that we monitor first is down on Macdowall Crescent. We have a catch basin there if there is any flooding that is where it’s going to start showing up first”, he said.

The river would need to be flowing at twice that rate before water would breach the eastern bank of the city, Trudell said.

While flooding is out of the question, the city is concerned that the higher flows will attract some extra attention from residents.

When you get high flows people get curious, said Trudell. “I would caution people to come down to the river and if they do stay well away from the banks, especially young kids.”

“It might not look like its moving fast but it is moving fast, Trudell said.

With extra water flowing down the river, the city’s water treatment plant has to work harder, said Trudell.

When flows are this high, filters have to be cleaned more often because there is more sand and silt in the water. But he assures residents there will be no impact on drinking water.

bbosker@panow.com