In recent high water, the aptly-named Eating Creek was eating away at driveways and threatening homes. According to residents who attended the M.D. #124 council meeting on May 16, it’s getting worse, and they want the M.D. to help them do something about it.
Noting the priority that beavers and fish seem to get whenever anyone talks about flood control, group spokesperson Edna Johnson said, “What about people habitat? When do we get a priority?”
Johnson made it clear that the residents are not expecting “somebody else” to do the work. They’re more than willing to contribute time, effort and even equipment. But she said all too often, the buck seems to be passed up the line from local government to provincial government to federal government.
Suggestions that came from the group included deeper ditches, removal of beaver dams, bigger culverts and even re-routing the creek (or at least its overflow) across the West Mitsue Road. They heard from M.D. officials that permission to change watercourses is very difficult to get and very expensive. The federal government (through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans) has a mandate to protect any watercourse that bears fish, or even might bear fish, and their regulations have teeth.
“The DFO has more authority than the RCMP,” said the M.D.’s Director of Field Operations George Snider.
M.D. manager Allan Winarski acknowledged the difficulties.
“Anyone who tries to do any work in a stream gets punted around from regulatory agency to regulatory agency,” he said. However, he noted that ditching the M.D. did last year did a good job as far as it went in handling a fair amount of creek overflow. Those ditches are largely silted up now, but are due to be dredged again soon.
As for culverts, Snider said he has a plan to put in some that have greater capacity, and to clean out some that are silted up.
As for the diversion across the Mitsue road, Snider said, “No, we’re not allowed to divert water from its natural course.” On the matter of beavers, Winarski said arrangements can be made to trap them, but pointed out that the experience of other municipalities show it is all but impossible to stay ahead of the busy rodents.
The parties seemed to agree that the province should do more to facilitate a solution. Winarski assured the residents that Alberta Environment had been duly informed of the latest incident.
Reeve Denny Garratt thanked the residents for coming and assured them that the M.D. is “trying to do something about Eating Creek flooding.”

Copyright © 2000 The Lakeside Leader. All Rights Reserved.
No part may be reproduced without written permission.

View our Privacy Statement.
Send website suggestions to the Webmaster