July/August 1997:
This spring, residents of Manitoba were confronted by the
flood of the century. As Winnipeg journalist Greg Pindera explains,
Manitobans have been battling the Red River since 1826. While
the Red's rising wa ters
forced 28,000 Manitobans (including 6,000 from Winnipeg) from
their homes this time around, major flood-control projects have
mitigated some of the river's potential for damage. Perhaps the
most significant is the 47-kilometer Red River Floodway, which,
since opening in 1968, has saved Winnipeg from flooding 18 times.
Without the floodway, dams and dikes, some estimate that 80 per
cent of Winnipeg would have been underwater and 550,000 city
dwellers evacuated.
June 1974:
University of Waterloo geography professor S. George Rich
documents the massive construction project of the Red River Floodway,
and its place in the Winnipeg landscape. In the spring flood
of 1974, as the Red and Assiniboine rivers crested almost simultaneously,
the floodway's ability to protect the property and lives of Winnipeg
residents was put to the test. The floodway performed magnifi cently.
Rich begins:
Few people could name a major public
work involving more excavation than the Canadian section of the
St. Lawrence Seaway or nearly half the excavation of the Panama
Canal or could name a public work costing less than the original
estimate. The Winnipeg Floodway is just such a work.
Following the great flood of 1950, Manitobans began to re-examine
their ability to protect their homes and lives from the annual
surging of the Red. But protection from the ravages of the Red
would not come cheap: the combined cost of the floodway, together
with the Shellmouth Reservoir and the Portage Diversion, equaled
the entire 1958 annual Manitoba provincial budget. And, as Rich
adds:
One of the paradoxes of human nature
apparently is that we have a short memory for disasters. Although
a large number of residents of Greater Winnipeg were directly
affected by the 1950 flood, it was not long before some persons
came to regard the floodway as a "waste of land"...
Still, a government commission determined that for every $1.00
spent on flood protection works,$2.73 in future flood losses
would be saved.
Construction of such an enormous and elaborate project was
no easy task. For example, powerful earth-moving machines often
became stuck, bogged down in the infamous Winnipeg gumbo, a liquid
mud which is the product of fine alkaline soil which, when saturated
with water, is as sticky as glue. Construction was further complicated
by the fact that seven railway bridges, five major highway bridges,
an oil pipeline, a gas pipeline, and six hydro rights-of-way
cross the floodway. Under construction between 1962 and 1968,
the Red River Floodway is an engineering marvel:
The tops of the (floodway's inlet
control) gates are sufficiently below normal river levels to
allow pleasure boats to pass over them. The gates are hinged
on the up-stream side and are operated by hydraulic servomotors.
When the flow in the Red River reaches approximately 850 cubic
metres, water starts to flow into the floodway channel. As flows
in the Red River increase, the gates are raised so that more
and more water is diverted into the floodway.
Rich ends by writing:
The events of this spring have completely
vindicated the judgment of the engineers and politicians who
conceived and built the system; today they must be very happy
men. Thinking back to the criticism that they were subjected
to a decade ago...in both social and financial terms what was
once disparagingly referred to as "Duff's ditch" is
now showing a healthy credit balance.
(Photo of the floodway from
the Manitoba Government Information Service)
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