High water levels on Ottawa River resurface flooding fears

Just outside of Westmeath on Sand Point Trail, Kevin Abrams can do nothing but watch as the Ottawa River edges closer to his retaining wall.

"It's never been even close to this level," says Abrams of the water height to the back of his home in Whitewater Region.

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"This time of year in particular, it's normally a couple hundred feet of beach, and (now) you'll see there's no beach."

Residents in this area of Whitewater Region are fearing the worst again after cleaning up from flooding in 2017, 2019, and most recently this past spring.

Water levels downstream of Pembroke are at abnormally high levels. Readings by the Ottawa River Regulation Planning Board (ORRPB) measure the water level at 112.25-metres on Nov. 1, which is 83-centimetres above the median for this time of year.

"In the last three weeks, it's just kept getting higher and higher and higher," says Abrams.

The ORRPB says the high water levels are due to above average rainfall recently, as well as river reservoirs sitting at full capacity.

Dan Poole has owned a season cottage on Sand Point Trail for over a decade now and regularly tracks the levels along the Ottawa River.

"I don't know if it's climate change or basically what it is, but we definitely have a runoff problem and a runoff problem means this river is going up," he tells CTV News.

Having stayed through flooding in previous years, Poole says flooding begins on Sand Point Trail once the river reaches 112.60-metres in height.

"We've had three 60-millimetre storms up in northern reservoirs. So one more storm like we just had, this road is going under"

Levels downstream from Pembroke are still well below the record of 113.04 for this time of year, set back in 1928.

The ORRPB says it expects water levels to drop over the coming weeks.

But that forecast is not easing anxiety for what may come next spring.

"It's obviously concerning because it gives you a really bad platform and starting point for the inevitable level of flooding that we're going to get every spring," says Abrams.

"Let's just say we continue to have warm weather in the wintertime, it will be a concern," added Poole.