[Tinordi]

http://www.desmog.ca/2013/06/25/30-y...fell-deaf-ears

Evidence of the likelihood of this kind of disastrous flooding has existed for more than 30 years. In 1979, the municipal government of Calgary commissioned Montreal Engineering Company (Monenco) to do a study of the flooding hazards at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers. The results were prescient.

Although Clague says that this flood is most likely worse than anything in recorded history, there were three major floods between 1875 and 1902, then again in 1932, followed by decades of relative dryness. The study predicted a major flooding event every 70 years or so.

With this in mind, Monenco presented Calgary with a number of strategies for limiting the predicted millions of dollars worth of damage (thanks to development since then, the number is more likely to be in the billions).

“At the heart of the recommendations was a floodplain management scheme in which hazardous areas would be officially delineated. New development would be prevented or discouraged in the hazardous areas, and existing structures would be required to meet certain ‘floodproofing’ standards,” University of Calgary’s G D Osborn wrote in Geologic And Hydrologic Hazards In Calgary.

The standards went into public consultation, inciting ire on the part of residents. Those who stood against the plans saw them as an economic impediment. They argued that there were holes in the science, and that because they’d never personally experienced such a disaster, it seemed unlikely.

“This report was made public and there was a huge amount of resistance to it,” Clague says. “People thought that this was intruding on their freedom. Those flood-prone surfaces were developed and now we see the consequences of that.”