By Tara Carman
News staff
May 16 2007

Flooding caused tens of thousands in damage to Monteith Street property
There are several groups trying to figure out how to increase the flow of Bowker Creek, but Janet Tudor wouldn't mind if the water receded a little.
Tudor's house, near the allotment gardens on Monteith Street, suffered $32,000 in damage the last time the creek overflowed in January. She and her husband are only now completing the last of the repairs.
"The flow that happened this year literally burst our doors open. We couldn't hold it back. It was a tsunami," she said at a recent committee-of-the-whole meeting.
Tudor asked the engineering department to look at what can be done to prevent flooding in the future.
Engineering services director David Marshall said the creek floods at fairly regular intervals every few years. Whenever there is a heavy rainfall, the creek fills up, the culvert beside Fireman's Park overflows and the water runs over Monteith Street, Marshall explained. The worst flood he remembers was in 1990, when the area became "a 40-foot river."
"During a rainfall event, it's very likely that an event like that could happen again … with all the development upstream it probably won't get any better," he said at the meeting.
Marshall noted that the CRD is already taking steps to address the issue through the Bowker Creek Initiative, which includes a master drainage plan.
The plan aims to cover the entire Bowker Creek catchment area and take all rainfall scenarios into account. Eventually, the CRD will make recommendations and the three municipalities affected - Victoria, Saanich and Oak Bay - will have to decide how much to contribute to the project, Marshall explained, adding that this is the long-term solution.
In the meantime, to help the Tudors, engineering staff will survey the area to see how the overflow can be contained or diverted and make recommendations to council, Marshall said.

Dunc Malcolm/News staff

Oak Bay resident Janet Tudor wants council to find solutions to the flooding of Bowker Creek.