A plan to open a dike along the Assiniboine River in Manitoba to relieve flood pressure has been delayed until Saturday.
Steve Ashton, Manitoba’s minister of infrastructure and transportation, said Thursday that provincial workers, soldiers and volunteers had reinforced river dikes and the Portage diversion channel, allowing them to carry more of the swollen floodwaters.
This gives the province and property owners more time to prepare for when the provinces expects it will have to intentionally breach the dike near Portage La Prairie, a move expected to flood 225 square kilometres and 150 homes.
Earlier Thursday officials had expected they would have to breach the dike in the afternoon to prevent unplanned breaches that had the potential to flood twice that area and affect 850 homes.
Recent reinforcements of the Portage diversion channel are allowing it to move one third more water than its normal capacity.
Because more water is moving through the diversion channel into Lake Manitoba, when the water is released Saturday, it will be done at a more gradual rate than first planned. Water would flood out at a rate of 500 cubic feet per second, much less than the 2,000 to 6,000 cfs talked about earlier this week.
