Northern Ontario conservation authorities warn of possible spring flooding

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 18, 2025 1:25 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Conservation authorities successful bluish Ontario are urging residents to enactment cautious astir creeks and rivers arsenic h2o levels emergence owed to snowmelt and rainfall.

The North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority issued a flood outlook past week, informing of the imaginable for flooding, with h2o levels successful astir areas opening to rise, though the hazard remains debased astatine this time.

Angela Mills, the h2o resources specializer astatine the authority, said flooding could hap successful section creeks and rivers that are receiving snowmelt, but the hazard is minimal.

"It would lone beryllium successful the section creeks and rivers that are conscionable receiving snowmelt from our section areas. There is immoderate concern, particularly due to the fact that the scenery is either frozen soils or, if the ungraded is nary longer frozen, fixed that caller and accelerated melt, the ungraded would beryllium saturated truthful it can't store immoderate further moisture," Mills explained.

The Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie Conservation Authorities person besides issued flood outlook and h2o information statements, advising radical to enactment distant from bodies of water.

Carl Jorgensen, the wide manager of Conservation Sudbury, said conditions are presently normal, with h2o levels somewhat higher than the semipermanent mean successful the snowpack.

However, crushed conditions stay concerning arsenic the ungraded is inactive frozen, preventing h2o absorption.

"That's for the municipality parts of Junction Creek. So from the apical extremity adjacent Garson each the mode down to astir halfway down the creek, which is astir Kelly Lake," Jorgensen said. 

"So that section, which is truly the municipality halfway of a bully portion of the City of Greater Sudbury, that's the portion we're keeping a adjacent oculus connected close now."