A dam safety engineer told Nanaimo city council that there would be serious consequences if dams the city owns and maintains were to fail.
Dave Bonin, a senior hydrotechnical engineer with Hatch Ltd., presented at Monday’s governance and priorities committee meeting that he is concerned that at least two of the city’s dams could fail if an earthquake hit.
“We are majorly concerned about Middle Colliery Dam because it has been found to be susceptible to seismic and has been out of compliance with the regulation for a while,” he said. “South Fork is actually also one that we know is extremely vulnerable.”
There are 10 dams in Nanaimo. The level of consequence should one of them fail ranges from low to very high. The Old Reservoir Number One dam, which was emptied nine years ago, sits at low, but the Jump Creek, South Fork and Lower Colliery dams are categorized as having very high levels of consequences in the event of a failure.
