B.C.'s River Forecast Centre understaffed, says new report

A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says B.C.'s River Forecast Centre, the body that monitors the province's rivers and provides warnings for flood risk, is understaffed despite a decade-old internal report recommending more staff. 

Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the centre in its current form is ill-equipped to anticipate and respond to flooding events.

In its report, the CCPA sourced a 2010 report to the provincial government that warned staffing levels needed to be increased at the organization.

"The [2010] report, which was written by a top former water official for the province, was that the staffing levels of the River Forecast Centre — which is the critical frontline agency for providing timely and accurate warnings to British Columbians — were far, far below what they were in Alberta and in the U.S. Pacific Northwest," Parfitt said. 

At the time, the River Forecast Centre only had 5.5 full time staff members, compared to 24 in Alberta and 16 in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. 

"We've seen no increase whatsoever in staffing [since then]," Parfitt said. 

Parfitt says understaffing could lead to an inability to effectively communicate timely warnings — something he says happened in B.C. during these past two weeks.

"What we've seen with the events over the last few weeks was not only did the River Forecast centre here lag far, far behind its counterparts in the U.S. Pacific Northwest out of Portland in issuing warnings, but that its models were predicting nowhere close to what happened in this particular case," Parfitt said. 

'Amazing work'

Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth defended the institute.

"The River Forecast Centre does an amazing job and we have extraordinary individuals that do amazing work. They were absolutely doing their job alerting communities to the situations on the streamflow and riverflow forecasts that we are facing not just in this event but events that are taking place throughout the year," Farnworth said.

He did add, however, that the government would review its response.

Younes Alila, a hydrological engineer and a professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, says the government ought to increase staffing levels especially when events like these floods become more frequent and intense.

"When you combine the effects of climate change with the effect of forest cover change as a result of clear cutting logging and wildfire, many communities in B.C. are in for a hell of a ride for years and decades to come," Alila said. 

"What's at stake is the community and their livelihood, therefore we need a better warning system to save lives and protect communities out in B.C."