The Town of Princeton will review its latest flood mitigation plan at the next regular meeting of council.
Jared Thomas, manager of civic works, is recommending that council accept the November 2024 Flood Mitigation Plan completed by TRUE Consulting in its entirety, as information can be used for future projects, planning and potential grant application opportunities. Thomas will make the recommendation during the next meeting on April 16, as the 467-page document outlining the plan is now complete.
Princeton experienced an extreme rain event on the weekend of November 13, 2021, resulting in the Tulameen and Similkameen Rivers experiencing extreme river flows and flooding the following night. The flows resulted in overtopping of flood protection diking along the Tulameen River, as well as several washouts and breaches of the diking in the flats and downtown core, affecting the downtown area and resulting in significant damages to homes, structures, and water and sewer infrastructure.
The town has since repaired most of the critical diking infrastructure that was damaged back to its same elevations before the flood, as emergency funding only allows flood protection infrastructure to be built back to pre-flood conditions. Information gathered from the extreme flooding made the Town aware of the need for future protection and potential options.
Council awarded TRUE Consulting with the contract to complete a flood mitigation plan for Princeton on May 16, 2022. The following steps and considerations helped guide the development of a comprehensive plan:
- Implement updated floodplain mapping: the project utilized recent floodplain mapping from TRUE, as well as updated bathymetric and topographic data, to identify public infrastructure at risk of flooding and erosion
- Climate change impact assessment: the plan incorporated the latest science on climate change impacts on the Tulameen and Similkameen Rivers, following the recommendations from TRUE
- Flood risk assessment: a detailed evaluation of critical infrastructure and community assets outlines the Town's hazard exposure and vulnerability under climate change projections
- Flood mitigation options: critical infrastructure, raise existing dikes, set back dikes, and lower service level dikes
- Community engagement: flood mitigation options were presented to the community through engagement initiatives
- Multi-criteria analysis: hybrid flood mitigation was identified as the most cost-effective solution through analysis, considering social, technical, environmental, flood risk reduction and economic impacts
- Flood mitigation projects: specific option were proposed under the hybrid flood mitigation option, encompassing structural and non-structural measures for each project, detailing flood protection levels, benefits, technical considerations and regulatory issues to create effective allocation for planning and budget
