No ring dike, but why? How Peguis First Nation still has no permanent flood protection
CBC
Five times over the past 16 years, the Fisher River has spilled its banks at Peguis First Nation.
The river channel is so small and the terrain in Manitoba's northern Interlake is so flat, it doesn't take much for floodwaters to spread far and wide across the Anishinaabe and Cree community.
Every time there's a flood, the provincial and federal governments respond with some form of help. Depending on the severity of the flood in question, that assistance has included sandbags, pumps, billeting in hotels and even the replacement of dozens flood-damaged homes.
What Peguis still doesn't have — even after floods in 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014 and now this year — is any form of permanent flood protection for the 3,053 people who live in the community.
That means every three or four years on average, a flood on the Fisher River requires the mass displacement of a significant portion of Peguis' population.
This occurs while every community in the Red River Valley — including smaller centres like Morris, Emerson, St. Adolphe and Roseau River First Nation — are protected by ring dikes built high enough to keep floodwaters out.
"Do you see a ring dike around Peguis like you do with the town of Morris or any other location? There's nothing like that here," Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson told CBC News last week.
He expressed frustration the federal government has not provided his community with permanent protection from the Fisher River.
"In terms of the long-term flood protection efforts, there has been very little money identified for that purpose, and that's something we've been asking the federal government," he said.
A study completed in 2008 identified four options for Peguis: Holding back water upstream, building a diversion channel, raising homes up on mounds or building dikes along either side of the Fisher River or around clusters of homes.
A compact ring dike at Peguis is not an option, given the linear layout of the community, where homes are built along both sides of the Fisher River and stretch out for kilometres.
Hudson said a diversion channel would cost about $50 million and a series of dikes would cost $90 million.
Neither the federal nor the provincial government appear eager to pick up part of this tab. Questions about long-term flood protection for Peguis are met with vague assurances about the future.
The federal Liberal government would not promise anything on Tuesday.