For the second year in a row the front of Blake Jarvis’s home is surrounded by sandbags.
The tiny retaining wall was put in place by the City of Castlegar after Jarvis complained that his home has been experiencing flooding ever since the city repaved 2nd St.
This year the city not only installed the retaining wall again, but ended up supplying a wooden bridge to get over the wall after Jarvis’s wife tripped over it and broke her arm.
The flooding is only a problem during storms when large amounts of water rush down the 2nd St. Hill. Jarvis says it’s been a problem for 10 years now, and he’s had water in his house six times.
Chris Barlow, director of transportation and civic works, says some work has been done to try to fix the problem.
“The city went and we readjusted the catch basins on 2nd St. hill, we did some repaving areas to try to direct the water as well into the catch basins,” he said. “We’ve also done some jetting of the storm mains, cleaned out some of the lines because they had some debris in them. So the city’s done a number of different things ... to address the storm water issues.”
But Jarvis says those improvements haven’t fixed the problem, which is why he asked the city to bring back the sandbags this year.
The city is, however, working on a more long-term solution for the problem.
“This year we’re doing the preliminary design on a major storm improvement for that area,” said Barlow, “but it does take time to do the survey and the design, so that’s happening this year, and then it will go to council for budget deliberations for next year.”
If the improvements are approved for inclusion in the 2016 budget then the problem will be fixed next year.
Jarvis hopes the situation will be resolved as soon as possible.