CALGARY- The spring melt has already turned to flooding east of Calgary, and prompted residents of at least one Alberta community to put a boil water advisory in place.
Water has been pouring into basements and through fields near Langdon over the past few days.
“When it started getting warm, she started coming in, and she didn’t quit,” says homeowner Norm Mitchell, surveying the damage. “I’ve cleaned this basement four times already.”
He expects another deluge any day now, but predicts it won’t come overland.
“It’ll go down and come up underneath our basements, and everybody who lives out here knows it.”
The problem is overgrown ditches and plugged culverts are restricting the outflow to nearby Weed Lake. On one side of Vale View Road, those living in Willow View Estates are dealing with another problem: contaminated water.
“Underneath the pump house there’s a containment tank, and with the water level getting so high it has filled the containment tank and now we’ve got just completely contaminated water,” explains resident Darvid Beres. “We’ve all had some stomach issues, vomiting, diarrhea.”
As a result, neighbour Mary Larson started knocking on doors.
“I had to go around to everybody and tell them they’re on boiling water watch,” says Mary Larson. “Two days ago we phone the county and stuff, and the county said they’d look into it but we haven’t heard anything.”
A number of high water level advisories have also been issued for central Alberta.
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