The Hebbville Village Commission (HVC) hosted a special meeting Wednesday night to seek potential solutions to flooding in the area after the recent heavy rainfalls.
Ian Tufts one of the three members of the HVC started the meeting by saying, “This isn’t a witch hunt and we aren’t looking to attack anyone but rather we want to hear from the people who live in and around Fancy Lake and the other communities impacted by flooding in the area to find ways to better deal with the situation,”.
The over 100 people in attendance were then given a brief explanation of the Fancy Lake inflows and outflows. It was explained by Tufts and HVC Chair Jamie Richards that water flows into the lake from the Hebb Dam and the smaller Weagle Dam, while the only outflow is a relatively narrow stream that leads to the Petite Riviere.
The Hebb Dam is operated by the Town of Bridgewater’s Public Service Comission (PSC) who decide when to increase or decrease flow by adding or moving stop-logs into the dam.
Following the heavy rain two weeks ago, the PSC removed seven of the stop-logs increasing flow into Fancy Lake and resulting in many homes being flooded. The PSC however is believed to have had no choice in the matter as they are a Class 2 Dam which means they are subject to federal regulations to release water when the reservoir begins filling too quickly so as to preserve the structural integrity of the dam.
The meeting at the Hebbville Fire Hall had around 100 attendees to discuss soloutions to the flooding in Fancy Lake and surrounding areas. Photo: Evan Taylor.
After the situation was explained, many residents spoke and outlined their frustrations with how the system currently works.
Jack Murphy a resident of Fancy Lake for over 4 decades suggested that the PSC should be more proactive in its decisions to release water which he feels could have helped avoid the recent flooding. “I’ve had my property flood five times in my life and every time it was because of human action,” Murphy said. The town decides in their wisdom for the integrity of the dam to remove the logs and then we see a major rise in a short ammount of time that the land can’t deal with,”.
Murphy and other residents who spoke at the meeting suggested the town could have began removing logs earlier when the first weather forecasts began calling for heavy rain, but Jamie Richards explained why that doesn’t happen, “They tend to hold the water back as much as they can for as long as they can so residents have water, but then by waiting until the dam regulations kick in when they are forced to lift stop-logs it’s usually during extreme weather events, leading to the situation we saw last week,”.
Alternative suggestions were also put forward by residents and other stakeholders at the meeting, like adding an outflow that would run to the LaHave River, widening the stream into the Petite Riviere, and having a more collaborative relationship with the PSC.
“This meeting’s purpose was to get information out, listen to ideas people in the area have and find ways to move forward,” Richards said. “I think the turnout shows people care and people want something done, so we now need to strike while the irons hot and find a better way of dealing with this situation.”
Attendees were asked to fill out questionnaires at the meeting which asked for their ideas as well as their thoughts on pursuing legal action. During the meeting the HVC Board told attendees that they have had an initial meeting with a lawyer, but were not at liberty to discuss further at this time, they also want to look at the questionnaire results before moving forward.
